


Super Sonic Speed

by Mobbo



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Loneliness, Misunderstandings, hopefully more lighthearted than this is making it sound, its a serious take on my “what if sonic kept his speed secret” fic lmao, tails steals a plane, themes of isolation, will add more tags as they become relevant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23620384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mobbo/pseuds/Mobbo
Summary: An unfortunate, tiny change in the workings of the universe means that Sonic never meets Tails.Years of fighting Eggman alone start to get to you after a while.
Relationships: Knuckles the Echidna & Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna & Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower & Sonic the Hedgehog
Comments: 130
Kudos: 217





	1. Rough Start

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [You Aren’t Even That Fast](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23326351) by [Mobbo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mobbo/pseuds/Mobbo). 



> whelp  
> wheeeeeeelp  
> Enjoy?

When Sonic is little— little enough that Uncle Chuck can still pick him up easy, little enough that he hasn’t quite figured out walking, something in the world changes. It’s something distant, and something small, and something that changes the course of Sonic’s life. 

But right now that doesn’t matter. Right now everything is sunny and warm, Uncle Chuck is laughing as he tosses Sonic in the air, and life is good. 

* * *

Sonic learns how to run before he learns how to walk, moving around their little house at speeds that Uncle Chuck can barely track only to skid to a stop and immediately topple over. Uncle Chuck looks more stressed, now, more tired. Sonic won’t put together two and two until later, when he is older, but for now the world is a wild blur of colours and he’s moving faster and faster and faster. 

* * *

Sonic goes for a run outside once he’s old enough. Uncle Chuck sees him off with a tired smile and Muttski licks his cheek, and Sonic is so lost in the beautiful colours of the world as they blend and smear together that he doesn’t go home for hours and hours. 

That doesn’t matter though. There’s no one waiting for him. 

He’s alone. 

He’s going to be alone for a very long time. 

* * *

He meets Eggman a year later. Their first battle isn’t anything special, shouldn’t be the starting grounds for a hatred that lasts decades, but it is anyway. His tech isn’t built to withstand high velocity impact, or dangerously fast balls of spikes, and Sonic smashes through it with ease. The human at the epicentre of it— floating in a little egg shaped ship looks at Sonic with something approaching terror. 

“Freak! You’re a freak!” 

* * *

Sonic returns to his (empty) house later than he usually does. Freak. Was that why Uncle Chuck left? (Maybe, in another time, where something does not Change, Uncle Chuck is attacked by Eggman— Robotnik, somewhere Sonic can see him. He is not called away by a last minute emergency. But that other time and place are not here, and not now.)

Sonic leaves again the next morning, at his usual pace. He doesn’t go back. 

* * *

It’s simple, for a while. Eggman shows up— usually with upgraded tech, and Sonic smashes through it with relative ease, leaving the Doctor to yell curses at him from his little egg shaped carrier. (Freak!) He doesn’t let the words get to him, as much, anymore, he thinks, instead filling his spare time with breezing through forests and across fields, and it doesn’t occur to him that Eggman has been his only company for going on years now when he comes across The Chaotix. 

Vector is friendly and Espio is cool and Mighty is a nice mix of the two and Sonic can’t bring himself to run around them. (“Freak” some part of his mind supplies. “Uncle Chuck always looked so tired.”) 

Stage fright, maybe, he thinks, and leaves it at that. And, for a while, he has a nice time. The Chaotix are nice, and he even helps them solve a mystery or two, and it doesn’t occur to him that he hasn’t heard from Eggman in weeks until the news about South Island being taken over reaches them. 

“We should—“ someone starts, but Sonic doesn’t wait to find out who or what they should do, he’s already gone. He never sees the Chaotix again. 

* * *

Life, then, is a little less simple. There are two rules, really, the first of which is Eggman is a lunatic with a thirst for vengeance who can’t stand being shown up by a crazy fast hedgehog, who will never leave Sonic alone. The second of which is that Sonic can’t run in front of people. 

It’s an easy rhythm to keep to, at least. The Mad Doctor doesn’t seem inclined to include anyone else in his plans— aside from his own creations, and Sonic doesn’t know anyone else. (Never took the Tornado, never had it break down on a beach, never met Tails.)

(Never learned to trust.)

It’s fine. 

* * *

A few more years pass— Sonic has stopped keeping count, and Eggman reveals something big. 

Eggman reveals Metal Sonic. 

For the first time Sonic feels his speed being challenged— being matched, and it scares him as much as it exhilarates him, and he meets Metal Sonic’s silent challenge with a smile. Their first clash is spectacular, flying sparks and spines and speed, the world a blurry mess of green and brown and red and the blue paint of his adversary and pink—

Sonic finds himself stopped in his tracks, legs locking up as the other hedgehog is tackled by Metal Sonic. She shouts something, but Sonic can’t hear it over the sudden rush of blood in his ears because what if she saw what if she saw what if she saw

Metal is crushed under a mallet nearly the size of the pink hedgehog, which she wields with a vengeance. She brings it down once, twice, until Metal Sonic stops moving, and then she leans against it casually and huffs a sigh of relief. 

(Metal Sonic was fast like him and now he is rubble under her feet—) 

“Hey! You okay? What was that?”

“Huh? Oh— I’m A-Okay! That was—” lie to her lie to her lie to her “— I’m not sure what that was. Thanks for helping deal with it though.”

“Oh, sure thing! My names Amy, by the way. Amy Rose!” She smiles, and the hammer vanishes in a puff of pink. 

“I’m Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog!”

* * *

Amy is nice, and ends up sticking around to help deal with Eggman. Unfortunately, what was a mild problem with the Chaotix is suddenly a phobia, enough so that Sonic can barely jog around her. It gets to the point that she pokes fun at him for being slow, and some long buried part of him bristles and shouts ‘I’m the fastest thing alive!’ to the wind, where no one will hear it. The rest of him laughs, though awkwardly. 

So he smashes Badniks when she isn’t looking, which is often because without him tearing through them at high speeds there seems to be so many more of them. 

Their second week of being friends, Amy makes a comment along the lines of “man, robot-guy has been working a lot harder lately,” and Sonic pushes himself to smash more robots behind her back. 

* * *

Metal Sonic returns, eventually— this time, much more resistant to blunt force impact, as proved when Amy tries to smash him into the ground again. Instead her Hammer bounces off of Metals skull, leaving her open for the precious second it takes for Metal to wrap his fingers around her throat. She looks scared, Sonic realizes distantly, and then he’s smashing into Metal as fast as he can, forcing the robot to lose its grip and dragging it far away enough that Amy is but a spot of pink on the horizon, and the realization that Sonic showed off his speed to someone other than Uncle Chuck or Eggman doesn’t have time to settle before Metal is on him. 

Their fight is intense, probably the hardest Sonic has ever fought anything— ever, period, end of story, but he deals out what he gets and in the end Metal loses. Jubilation hits as he realizes Metal isn’t going to get up again, and he speeds off to find Amy, barely thinking of the implications beyond winning. 

She looks horrified. (She looks horrified and there is a ring of bruises around her neck deep and dark.)

Sonic breaks the sound barrier for the first time that day. Unfortunate timing, really— it means he doesn’t hear Amy’s concerned yelling. 

* * *

Rule one. Eggman always follows Sonic. 

Rule two. Sonic doesn’t run in front of people. 

* * *

Easy. 

* * *

Just don’t be around people. 

* * *

He doesn’t know how long it’s been since Eggmans last attack, and that’s a little alarming. It’s supposed to be routine, almost, but it isn’t because the mad doctor is gone. (And the last time routine broke he failed and South Island fell and so many innocent creatures suffered and nature was ruined from laser blasts and traps and technology and)

This time, Sonic is the one to follow. 

The one to follow Eggman into a trap. 

“I’ve got you now, you despicable rodent! Oh ho ho ho ho!!! No longer will you meddle in my plans!”

“Yeah, right, Egghead. I’ll bust outta here in no time flat!”

“Hmph, over confident as always, hedgehog. No, this isn’t the real trap— how do you feel about a little trip skywards, hm? I’ve got some friends who would just love to meet a freak like you!”

Sonic doesn’t get time to respond before everything goes black, and he wakes up in a jungle. 

An unfamiliar jungle. 

An unfamiliar jungle with an orange thing and a red thing staring at him. “‘S rude t’stare,” he manages, and Eggman either hit him a lot harder than usual or he managed to find a combo of drugs that doesn’t burn right back out of Sonic’s system, because everything goes black again. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Tails finds the empty house with a thin layer of dust on all its surfaces. There’s skid marks on the floor and wires in the cupboards and he finds a dented wrench covered in motor oil crammed under the fridge. It’s almost eerie, a snapshot into the past, of someone else’s life, and he turns to leave. The house looks long abandoned, but he doesn’t know if anyone will ever be coming back, and if they do he doesn’t want to be there. 

Still, there’s a door cracked halfway open on the way to the exit, and he can’t help but poke his head inside. 

It’s the most beautiful plane he’s ever seen, sparkling red under the gray sheet of dust, emblazoned with stark white accents. 

And, well. The keys are in the ignition. It’s not like the house was occupied. The place takes off beautifully, and Tails doesn’t fully realize he’s actually stolen it until he’s miles and miles away and the fuel meter is dipping close to zero. The engine sputters once, twice, and Tails is smart but right now all that means is he knows how fast he’s going to fall and how hard he’s going to hit. 

It’s not like anyone would miss him, he thinks, and then that thought is stolen by the stark terror of being trapped in a falling plane as it nosedives. He pulls frantically back on the controls, but the engine belches a thick cloud of black smoke and something snaps deep within the plane, and then the sound of metal grating against metal fills his ears and it’s all he can do to brace for impact, ears clamped to his skull and eyes squeezed shut. 

It comes a lot faster than he expects, and a lot gentler. It’s like he had barely fallen at all— but he had passed through the clouds, remembers playing with the thin wisps of white that stuck to his fur. 

So who can blame him when it takes him a solid five minutes to peel one eye open, and then the other when it becomes clear that the plane really has landed. Except the clouds are still below him, and that makes no sense because he can clearly see land. The plane shudders again, belching more smoke into the air, and Tails remembers with a jolt the horrific grating noise, unbuckling himself and scrambling away from the plane. He tucks himself behind a nearby tree, both tails wrapping around him, but there’s no explosion. 

When he peeks around the tree, theres a number of things he’s expecting.Maybe the plane fell apart. Maybe it fell off! Maybe it’s still waiting for the perfect moment to explode. 

He doesn’t get any of these things. 

Instead, he comes face to face with a very angry looking and very red creature. 

Tails runs. 

* * *

Red is impossibly at every turn and corner he takes, fists with huge spikes protruding out of them nearly collide with the young fox multiple times. Too terrified to speak, Tails opts to keep on running until Red finally corners him, and then the words gush out like he’s a faucet that’s been turned on. “Sorry, sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to! Augh!” 

Red leans in closer, not moving his fist from where he planted it in the wall next to Tails’s skull. “Whaddya want with the Master Emerald?”

“The Master what? I’m sorry, I just crashed— my plane, I didn’t—“

“Bullshit! Why else would you be here if not for the Master Emerald!?”

“Because no one wants me anywhere else!” 

Red draws back at that, and gives Tails a proper once over. The fact he has two tails seems to fly right over his head, and he scratches at the back of his head. “You’re really not here for the Master Emerald?”

“I’m not, I promise. I don’t even know what that is.” 

Which is how Tails meets Knuckles. Kind of a rocky first meeting, but things smooth out from there. Knuckles agrees to let Tails stay until he can patch up the Tornado— the plane that had carried him there, and doesn’t comment on when Tails sticks around even after the plane is clearly in top shape. Instead he just shows Tails where he can store it, and that’s that. 

Easy. 

* * *

“‘And these are the chaos emeralds. Just like the Master Emerald, I’m tasked with keeping them safe, got it?” 

“Got it! Hey, can I build—“

* * *

“Hey, Knuckles?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever feel like... I dunno... something’s missing?”

“Sometimes.”

* * *

“Wait— don’t touch—!”

“Ow! Tails, what—“

“It’s a prototype!!!”

* * *

“Look, this algorithm is meant to copy and preserve the more damaged ruins, so if we gotta fix them we can!”

“Tails, maybe you shouldn’t—“

“What? It’s not like it’s gonna cast a magic curse on me, right?”

“Well, no, but—“

“It’ll be fine!”

* * *

“Knuckles... what are those carvings of that... hedgehog? And that lizard?”

“...”

“... Knuckles?”

“... Her name was Tikal. The lizard was and is Chaos.”

* * *

“Hey, is that... is that another plane? Knuckles? ... Wait for me!”

* * *

“I assure you, I want nothing to do with your Emerald! I’m here to warn you about Sonic!”

The man smells like motor oil and metal, thinly veiled under what might have passed for a floral scent, were it not so artificial. Tails doesn’t trust him, not at first, but he has Knuckles convinced and it’s hard to argue with the guardian of the Master Emerald when he’s certain of something. 

Even so, Tails isn’t sure until the man notices his tech, devolving into excited ramblings about machinery. It’s hard to argue with Knuckles, but it’s even harder to argue with another tech enthusiast, especially when he’s been living with Knuckles. It takes the guardian a couple tries to get the man back on track, but once he does the cheerful atmosphere falls away like a mask. 

“His name is Sonic, like I told you before. He’s a blue hedgehog, and he’s an absolute menace! I just want to live in peace with my assistance devices— I’m not as young as I used to be— but he kept coming along and smashing them!” 

Tails gasps, horrified at the idea of destroying tech, and while Knuckles doesn’t make any noise Tails has learned to read him well enough that he can tell the echidna is distressed— though likely not by the destruction of property. 

“I tried to defend myself, but he just used that as an excuse to get more and more violent, and now I’m afraid that he’s after the chaos emeralds!”

Knuckles, who had been sitting and listening with arms and legs crossed slams a fist against the ground. “No way! Guarding the emeralds is my responsibility! He won’t get to them!”

“Yeah!” Tails joins in, “We’ll stop him!”

The man wipes a tear out from under his beady glasses, “Oh, it is such a relief to hear that! I shudder to think of what that menace could do with that sort of power...” 

If he sounds longing rather than frightened, neither of them notice. And when he leaves, if he mutters “freaks” into the whine of his orb-plane’s exhaust, neither of them hear that either. 

* * *

Tails finds Knuckles standing in the ruins, arms folded as he stares up at a vibrant mural. Specifically, the mural depicting the blue hedgehog and the strange creature, which Tails now thinks looks like the man. 

“Do you think...” he starts, but doesn’t finish. 

Neither of them say anything for a very long time. 

* * *

Knuckles feels the disturbance on the island first, as he always does. It’s Tails’ job to watch the skies for incoming planes, but when something slips past him it is always Knuckles who finds it first. He taps Tails pointedly on the tip of the tail closest to him, and strides of determinedly into the woods. Tails activates the protection shield around the Master Emerald Knuckles had reluctantly let him install— designed to shock any intruder, and follows.

The hedgehog they find can’t be Sonic, he thinks at first. Half curled into a ball of spikes, completely still, looking almost as small as Tails himself— that can’t be the threat that they’ve been warned of. He thinks for a moment that maybe it isn’t breathing, but then poisonous green eyes catch on Tails’ own, and a lazy smirk plays across a half hidden muzzle. 

“‘S rude t’stare,” it— he says, and then he slumps back into unconsciousness. 

Tails doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s very glad the hedgehog is unconscious, now. 

“Hah! This is the major threat that old man warned us about? He must be going senile!” 

Knuckles, apparently, doesn’t share his viewpoint. 

“Yeah, but... how did he get here?” Tails gestures at the clearing, as if a plane might miraculously reveal itself, “Theres no plane, and if anything flew overhead I would know about it.”

Knuckles frowns, then stalks over to the hedgehog, kicking him over so he lies belly down, then carefully starts rooting through his quills. 

“What are you—?” Tails starts, but doesn’t get to finish as, quicker than expected, Knuckles stands up again, holding a Chaos Emerald. 

“I didn’t sense a Chaos Control, but... he has the sixth Emerald. ” 

Neither of them comment on the emerald being the same colour as the one depicted on the mural. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I’m gonna be honest I didn’t finish outlining before I started writing because I got impatient But I probably know where this is going. It’s fine. This is fine.  
> (Ssssssorry Uncle Chuck, gettin the short end of the stickkkkkk,,,,,,)  
> Geeee Sonic wonder why you have a chaos emerald


	2. Pit Traps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonic gets stuck in a pit and maybe makes a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta say, this is a lot more popular than I thought it would be, haha. Can’t guarantee I’ll always publish this fast but I can guarantee that I’ll eventually finish this!

When Sonic wakes up again, he’s in a dark, confined space, and his hands are bound in front of him. Inconvenient, it’ll make the ropes harder to get at with his quills, but he’s escaped from tougher spots before. 

“This the worst you can do, Eggman? I could escape from here with my eyes closed.” He calls out, knowing the genius won’t have gone far, the gloater that he is. 

“Eggman, huh?” Responds a voice that is decidedly not Eggman, and Sonic freezes in place. “That the name of the guy you’ve been picking on?”

Ah, that’s right, the unknown jungle, the red and orange smears, and the supposed ‘ _friends_ ’ Eggman has made. 

“I— I dunno what kinda story he’s been tellin’ you, but—“ 

“Save it. You’re not tricking me to get to the chaos emeralds.” 

‘ _The what?_ ’ Sonic thinks, and opens his mouth to repeat the thought when there’s a sizeable metallic crash from outside. 

“Tails!” The person he had been talking to yells, annoyed, and there’s a sheepish chuckle. 

“Sorry! I just wanted to—“

“Can it wait?”

“Not really!”

The brief argument is all Sonic needs to work one of his legs up between his arms— really, they hadn’t even bound him at the ankles— and kick hard enough to snap the ropes. The noise is disguised under further crashing, and, rubbing his wrists, Sonic takes the chance to further check out his current cage, which has dirt floors and stone walls and what he can now make out to be a finely woven mesh hatch over the top. A pit trap, essentially, and one that he could normally blast out of easily, but the thought of people watching (tired eyes and cries of freak and an entire island near destroyed and a ring of purple bruises like a necklace) stops him. 

“So uh, you plannin’ t’keep me in this pit trap for the rest of time? Cause I gotta tell you buddy, that ain’t gonna work out.” 

“It doesn’t matter where we’re going to keep you, you’ll never get to the chaos emeralds.”

Which, okay, that’s a sentiment Sonic can agree with— ol’ egghead has never managed to keep him trapped anywhere, this new duo shouldn’t be able to either. 

“Sure,” he responds, drawing out the ‘u’. “You can tell Eggy that his trap failed when I blast outta here.” 

“Hmph.”

* * *

It takes a couple hours and Sonic wearing the pit a few feet deeper with his pacing, but eventually there’s the sound of footsteps walking away. As soon as that fades, the blue hedgehog is speeding up the side of the pit trap, pushing the mesh out of the way and flipping up onto solid ground. Sure enough, he’s alone, and he lets the mesh drop back into place. Let ‘em worry about how he got out on his own time, he’s got better places to be, other robots to smash.

* * *

Even so, if he walks for the first while instead of the usual sound breaking speed he’s gotten used to, well, there’s no one around to comment on it.

* * *

It takes him a little longer to hit his usual pace, not willing to push at the sound barrier, not yet. This is unknown territory— which is new, because he’s pretty sure he’s travelled the whole globe twice over by now.

He’s rewarded for going slow when he tears out of the jungle and still has time enough to screech to a stop and barely catch himself on the edge of the cliff that starts very suddenly. If he had been going any faster, he would have sailed clean off the edge, and into... the clouds. 

Well, egghead did say something about the sky. Sonic just maybe... hadn’t taken it as seriously as he should have, so now he’s dangling over an endless cloudy expanse by one hand. Shifting his grip up a bit, he manages to swing his other arm up, but as he goes to pull himself up properly the dirt threatens to crumble away. What he wouldn’t give for a few flickies— the birds are disproportionately strong. 

But here and now? Sonic is alone. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Tails and Knuckles return to the cage a few minutes after Knuckles first left, Tails clutching the barrier device that had previously protected the Master Emerald. 

“I don’t think this is a good idea...” Knuckles grumbles, sitting back down in his spot next to the pit. 

“It’ll still be protecting the Master Emerald! Just... from over here.” Tails sets the device down and starts typing in the new perimeters, ignoring the pile of scrap he had dropped nearby earlier. Initially his plan had been to build a new one, but Knuckles had wanted Sonic as secure as possible as soon as possible, so moving the barrier from the Master Emerald was the smartest option.Even if the echidna wasn’t the biggest fan of the idea. 

This latest installation of the barrier device comes equipped with a sensor, reporting the location of any nearby Mobians. It flickers to life as Tails finishes typing in the coordinates, pinging the usual orange and red dots representing him and Knuckles, and... nothing else. 

Frowning, he widens the range, and then again, and then a fourth time, and still nothing. 

“Uh, Knuckles, slight problem?” 

“Hm?”

Tails flips open the lid of woven reeds, revealing the empty pit. “He already escaped.” 

The echidna stares blankly at the pit for a moment, before cursing. “The Master Emerald—“ he starts, but doesn’t bother finishing, instead taking off running. Tails, for a moment, considers following him. It’s what he does, after all, but something makes him pause. Something makes him widen the range yet again on the barrier device, extending it to its limit, and sure enough a blue spot appears, right at the edge of Angel Island. 

Contrary to what Eggman(?) had said, Sonic hadn’t gone for the emeralds at all. 

Determination to find out what’s actually going on has Tails setting out in the direction of that distant blue dot, helicoptering his tails in order to lift over the dense trees. 

(How had he gotten so far, anyway...?)

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Sonic is just starting to lose his grip when the orange smear shows up— a fox, by the looks of it, and a young one. 

“Uh, hey. I know I just busted outta your cage an all, but would you mind givin’ a guy a hand?” He tops it off with a grin, and desperately hopes the fox doesn’t decide that letting him fall would be easier than going to all the effort of trapping him again. 

“Oh... oh! Yeah, of course!!! How long have you been— no, never mind, I’ll pull you up.” 

Oh, that’s a relief. Once he’s on solid ground Sonic can make excuses about why and how he got out and so far so quickly, but right now his only priority is standing on solid ground again. As the fox steps closer the loose ground crumbles a little bit further, threatening to drop and take Sonic with it. He freezes, the fox freezes, and there’s a moment of awkward silence. 

“Yeah, the ground isn’t exactly the sturdiest here.” He would shrug, if he could. 

“Oh, okay!” The fox grins, like he’s in on a secret, and spreads his tails out behind him. Both of them. Which, okay, Sonic has seen some pretty weird things— Mighty and Vector would have rock juggling contests with boulders, Amy could summon a Hammer of mass destruction at will— but this is still weird. And then the fox takes flight with them, moving upwards surprisingly quickly for a fox with two tails. Or maybe not; he hasn’t exactly met one before. 

The fox— oh, this one must be Tails, moves around behind Sonic, before hesitating. 

“Uh, your quills..?”

“Don’t worry, I don’t got em flexed right now! Y’can’t poke yourself on em, unless you’re really tryin’ to.” (Which, okay, maybe not the entire truth but Sonic would really like to not be dangling over a cliff right now.)

“Alright...” The fox gets a grip around Sonic’s middle, and lifts. There’s an awkward moment where it doesn’t look like he’s strong enough, but Sonic risks pulling up on the crumbling dirt ledge, and that’s enough of a boost to get them up and over. Tails lets go of Sonic as quick as he can, checking his gloves over for puncture marks, which, rude, he had said that he wasn’t going to stab him. 

The lack of injury seems to satisfy him, though, and he offers a handshake with a grin. 

“I’m—“

“TAILS!”

“... and that’s Knuckles. We’re over here!” 

Sonic chuckles as Tails yells back, perfectly content to remain sitting on (relatively) solid ground. “Nice t’meetcha, Tails. I’m guessin’ ol’egghead already told you my name?” 

“Yup! He— uh oh,” is the last Sonic hears, before something hard and heavy connects with the back of his head, and the world gets sort of fuzzy. 

* * *

“... he was just—“ 

“He’s a threat to the emeralds, Tails! I can’t just let him run free.” 

“Well, maybe if we...”

* * *

“And how did he get out? You can’t just— chaos control without an emerald.” 

“Maybe he climbed the walls?”

“That fast? And how did he—“ 

* * *

“I dunno, Knuckles. He doesn’t seem like a threat.” 

“Maybe he’s just trying to win our trust, Tails. I can’t let the Master Emerald fall into anyone’s hands.” 

* * *

It’s dark again when Sonic wakes up, feeling the same rope around his wrists— oh, and his ankles this time. Great. 

“Hey, anybody wanna let me out?” He calls upwards, guessing that he’s been dumped in the same pit trap. 

“You’re not fooling me, hedgehog!” Calls back who must be Knuckles. 

“I’m not tryin’ to!” 

“Hah!” 

There’s no convenient metal crashing to disguise the sound of his ropes snapping this time, so instead Sonic curls up as tight as he can and starts working at the rope around his ankles, searching for the knot. It’s solidly tied, but he had nothing but time, and while he picks at it he can’t help but wonder about his situation. Clearly his ‘captor’s have never had to tie up a hedgehog before, or else they’d know it’s almost impossible, unless you get crazy elaborate.

The ropes won’t be able to hold him for long, but it’s unlikely that they’ll leave the pit trap unguarded again, which is a problem. Maybe he can get Tails to hear him out? But then there’s the matter of where, exactly, he even is— if this is a floating island or something he has no chance of getting down on his own, and there’s exactly a 0% chance Knuckles is going to help him down. Tails, maybe, but he had barely managed to lift Sonic half a foot, and he couldn’t ask that of the kid. 

So he’s kinda stuck, which is not good because him not being there means that Eggman has free reign on Mobius, and maybe Amy and the Chaotix and the dozens of other people he never got to know could hold the mad doctor off for a while, but for how long?

Ah, there, the knot comes undone with a light tug, and then he’s able to kick the rope off of his wrists again— which ow, doing that is starting to give him rope burn. 

He paces for a while, arms folded behind him as he thinks. The confined space is starting to wear on him a bit, but he can’t risk just blasting out— Knuckles or Tails might be there and that— no, not an option. 

Finally, for a lack of anything else to do, Sonic calls out again, “So, you plannin’ to keep me in here forever, or...?” 

There’s a long silence, long enough for Sonic to maybe hope that he actually has been left unguarded, before Knuckles responds. 

“No. Maybe.” 

Which, helpful. 

“Great! Can I at least get a comic book or somethin’ down here? Y’can only stare at rock walls for so long before going nutty.”

“No.” 

Mr. Talkative, huh. Frustrated, Sonic sits down cross legged, resting his head on a palm and resisting the urge to start tapping out a tune or draw stick figures in the dirt. ...actually...

He’s halfway through a passable Amy— probably only recognizable because of the oversized hammer— when Knuckles speaks again. 

“What do you want with the chaos emeralds?” 

“Still don’t know what those are!”

“Bullshit, those are what you’re here for.”

“Oh, are they? Well, thank you for letting me know; can you let me out now?” 

Silence, again. Sonic finishes Amy and moves onto Tails, who he draws hovering above everyone else awkwardly. Then he starts on Knuckles, who he’s only really seen as a red smear, so he gets whatever weird features Sonic can think of. He’s adding the finishing touches when Knuckles bothers to speak up again, and Sonic has to smother laughter as he imagines that gruff voice coming out of his creation. 

“How did you Chaos Control without an emerald?”

“How did I what in the who now?”

“You know what I’m talking about!”

Sonic is pretty sure that he just made it clear that he doesn’t, actually, but apparently sarcasm flies right over this guys head. “Listen, I dunno what Eggy told you guys, but I have no idea what chaos emeralds or chaos control or what any of that junk is, alright?”

Silence. 

Well, great. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey here’s a fun fact from Mobbo: I lived like half an hour away from where the sonic movie was filmed for like a decade so if any of you want notes on “Green Hills” I can probably help.  
> Oh speaking of which, if y’all wanna chat with me more casually my tumblr is @mobbothetrue , and if you wanna read more of my writing (original fiction) my writing sideblog is @shadeshadow234 .


	3. The Master Emerald

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knuckles makes a mistake and Sonic has a mildly bad time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Knux, buddy, I love you, but you’re very hard to write. I’m impressed the sonic team manage to stop you from yelling “bullshit” at everything.

The Master Emerald is exactly where he left it, gleaming a rich green in the sun. The glimmer of light reflecting off of it projects _content_ and _laughing_ and _guardian_ and Knuckles doesn’t understand. By all rights he failed, let the intruder— the intruder he had been warned about— get loose and sure, he didn’t go after the Emerald but he’s still on Angel Island. The Chaos Emeralds join in, glimmering _laughter_ at him again, all six of them, for reasons he doesn’t understand, and Knuckles turns away. He has an intruder to find.

He finds the hedgehog seated across from Tails, takes a running start in order to drop onto him like a pound of bricks, only realizing that perhaps he might have made a mistake when Tails starts berating him.Even so, it isn’t in Knuckles nature to back down, and the two of them argue until the hedgehog starts waking up, prompting Knuckles to hit him again— mindful of the quills this time, a couple got him on the first blow and being poked isn’t an experience he wants to repeat— before hefting him over his shoulder and starting the trek back to the pit trap.   
Tails obligingly follows along— though still complaining, until Knuckles finally snaps at him in a way he hasn’t since Tails first arrived, and the twin-tailed fox slinks away. He’ll come around, Knuckles is sure, and he’s familiar enough with his barrier machine to be able to turn it on, trusting Tails to have the correct coordinates programmed in. Then he settles down to wait. 

It’s only half an hour before the hedgehog wakes up again— evidenced by the yelling. Knuckles yells back until he shuts up, and then sits there and waits. Thinking. Eventually there’s a snapping noise— the damned hedgehog probably managed to worm around enough that he got at the ropes with his quills. 

He should ask Tails about making quill-proof rope— though provided the fox might not be the happiest with him right now. He should... probably apologize. Oh well, that’s for later, right now the hedgehog is yelling again. 

Knuckles considers just not answering at all— maybe if he thinks he’s alone, he’ll get out again— and how had he gotten out in the first place anyway? No burrow marks, no handholds or quills sticking out of the wall, just faint residual Chaos energy. 

Residual Chaos energy, kind of like when... 

Temporarily fending off what feels like a shattering realization (all of the Chaos Emeralds are safe they’re _safe_ ), Knuckles calls back, but the conversation dies quickly. Just as well, because now Knuckles has something to actually think about. 

When conversation starts up again, Knuckles is the one to initiate it— and the hedgehog is frustratingly elusive. Knuckles brews in the resulting silence for a while before trying again— much to a similar lack of results. (Maybe Tails was right—) Eventually he decides to go check on the Master Emerald again, and Tails, having full faith in the barriers capacity to keep the hedgehog contained— weird maybe chaos control or no. 

* * *

When he comes back, the pit is empty again, boasting that same residual tingle of Chaos. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

By the time Knuckles leaves, Sonic is about ready to start bouncing off the walls. Even so, he waits, and then he walks, and by the time he gets a decent jog going he’s slamming into a crackling electric blue barrier. It extends far out of view into the jungle on one side, and hugs the side of the island on the other, which, great, at least he doesn’t have to worry about falling. What he does have to worry about is finding whatever’s generating this barrier and smashing it— something he’s gotten very good at after the sixth of seventh time. 

Except now there’s a snag in the plan— Knuckles and Tails are probably in the barrier with him. 

Sonic sighs, and braces himself for a long, boring walk. 

Following the barrier at least gives him an idea of its dimensions— it’s a lot bigger than any Eggman had managed to build before. It’s not exactly Eggmans style, either, instead of burning through the foliage it blends and adapts, wrapping around branches and leaves while not leaving any gaps. He’s about halfway along, he figures, when the dense jungle breaks into an open clearing decorated with an ancient looking temple, stairs upon stairs upon stairs reaching upwards. There’s no sign of Knuckles or Tails around, but even so Sonic takes the stairs slowly, curiosity urging him on. Besides, it’s not like he hasn’t already escaped twice. 

Reaching the top, Sonic is briefly overwhelmed by a wave of what feels like pure energy— green and rich and sparkling and the swooping feeling of _speed_ , of _wind_ pushing back against him and _protection_ and _gratitude_ and _sorrow_ , and by the time the feeling fades Sonic is on his knees, clutching his head. Daring to crack an eye open he is greeted by that same rich emerald, but where before it was a storm it’s now nothing more than a colour. 

Weird. Carefully he opens his other eye, and when there’s still no kickback, stands up. Sitting on a central platform and gleaming merrily in the sun is a gigantic emerald, half embedded in the floor. His reflection winks back at him from its glossed surface, and looking at it he looks like a mess— quills ruffled and sticking out a dozen different direction, dirt smeared along his front. Frowning, he brushes himself off, before getting started on rearranging his quills. 

That’s better, he figures after a minute, and turns to leave. 

Okay, slight snag in leaving— who can only be Knuckles is halfway up the stairs and he looks pissed as all hell. 

“THIEF! I knew it!”

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Having Knuckles snap at him had hurt, but Tails had to admit he maybe had a point. Sonic hadn’t seemed weirded out at all by his twin tails, but then he could have just been trying to win Tails’s trust. After all, what kind of person smashes an old mans utility devices? Unless Eggman had been lying? Ugh— this was too complicated. 

Frustrated, he goes where he always does when he needs to think, ducking into the Tornado’s cave. She’s still perfectly maintained, a glimmering red even in the dark. Sighing, he lifts himself into the seat, resting his head against the yoke. 

Unnoticed, outside, a barrier shimmers to life, crackling and blue. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Knuckles doesn’t go straight to the Master Emerald this time, instead following the same path as last time to the edge of Angel Island. It doesn’t even occur to him to check Tails’s barrier emitter, not until he’s standing at the edge and staring the barrier itself down. 

Evidently, Tails _hadn’t_ put the right coordinates in. 

Frustrated, he turns to leave— and the Master Emerald reaches out across the island, in a swoop of chaotic energy so quick it feels like wind through his fur. _Speed, protection, sorrow,_ he picks out, and with his heart in his throat he runs. 

He had been tricked. He might have failed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway that’s my take on the Master Emerald. It maybe knows more than it should.  
>  I like to think Sonic leaves little traces of Chaos energy behind when he runs!


	4. Tentative Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonic maybe kind of manages to get Knuckles to trust him a little bit.
> 
> Hey, who was the antagonist of this story again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing you may notice about me is that I am not very good at writing long chapters. The main reason this chapter took so long was I was trying to make it longer but that was just kinda killin my writing momentum, so. Short chapters it is!

It’s as Sonic dodges the first punch that he realizes he has a problem on his hands. Well, a problem beyond the crazed guy with spikes-for-fists trying to rearrange his internal organs. By punching. 

No, rather, his problem is this: He’s never fought anyone other than Eggman. 

Well, okay, he had technically been fighting the mad doctors robots, but the point still stands— he’s never really learned to fight without his speed. And fighting with his speed is out of the question— even if he wanted to, just the thought of it is enough to get his knees to lock up, which allows Knuckles to land a blow. 

Yeesh. And he though Tails had the too-on-the-nose name. 

Rolling with the hit— literally, he curls up into a ball of spikes— Sonic lets the momentum carry him to the edge of the platform, wavers for a moment on the ledge because even curled up this is probably going to hurt, and lets himself fall. 

Stairs _suck_. 

Uncurling at the bottom, Sonic spares a moment to mourn his nicely organized quills before realizing Knuckles is still after him, not waiting a second before launching himself down the temple after Sonic. 

So Sonic does what he does best. 

He runs. 

He’s slow, comparable to how he jogged around Amy, but he knows if he tries to go any faster Knuckles is going to catch him because he’s going to lock up. Even so, the— what even is he, anyway? is gaining on him, and Sonic is only moving slower. 

“You bastard! Get back here!” Knuckles bellows, and then punches through a tree. 

“I’m good, thanks!” Sonic calls back over his shoulder, barely dodging being clipped by said tree. Maybe if he manages to break Knuckles’s line of sight he could run (but he’s trapped up here he can’t run he’ll know he’ll know _he’ll know_ —)

Knuckles slams into him from behind, and Sonic does his best to roll away, only to have a spiked fist slam down on his back. 

“Gah! Watch the quills, would ya, buddy?”

“Like hell! You’re after the Master Emerald, I ought to kill you here and now!”

“What— your giant rock? What would I even do with that?” 

“You’re after what everyone is after: power.” He says it with utter confidence, for someone who’s completely wrong. 

“Oh, yeah? And what about Tails, then? Don’t tell me you actually believe Eggman!”

Knuckles growls in place of a reply, and Sonic only has a second to brace himself before Knuckles other fist connects with his temple. 

He’s starting to get tired of being knocked out.

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

After a solid while spent thinking (and a quick nap), Tails decides that he’s moped for long enough and it’s time that he actually go back out and help. He bids the Tornado a quiet goodbye, resting a hand on her shiny red plating and promising eventually, before stepping out of her cave and smashing face first into a barrier. 

Into his barrier. 

Into his barrier which really should not be turned on right now— into his barrier which is turned on which means that Sonic and Knuckles are trapped together. 

Tails may not know if he trusts the blue hedgehog or not yet, but he does know this: if Knuckles or any of the emeralds are hurt in any way, Sonic’s going to have two inventors to worry about. 

As it is, though, Tails is just going to have to wait— this barrier is meant to be impenetrable from the outside. And the inside. And any side that anyone tries to approach it from. 

Somehow, he gets the feeling it’s going to be a long wait. 

... He’s going to take another nap in the Tornado. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

When Sonic wakes up again— surprise surprise, he’s in the same pit. Wrists? Tied. Ankles? Also tied. Wonderful. He’s halfway through considering how bad the friction burns would be if he tried to spindash the ropes off when he realizes he isn’t alone. 

Rather, Knuckles is in the pit with him, sitting cross legged and glaring. 

“Gotta say, the room service here is terrible.” Sonic tries, but his quip is met with stony silence. Great. This is his worst nightmare. 

“What do you want with the Master Emerald?” Knuckles starts, and even better, they’re back here again. 

“Listen, buddy, I still don’t know what that is!” Sonic snaps back. 

“Prove it.” 

Okay, maybe he’s made some progress, and that’s enough for Sonic to ignore the growing pit of unease in his stomach and think. Finally, he sighs, and goes to rake a hand through his quills, only remembering that they’re still bound and the guy who tied the knots is still sitting across from him looking like someone ruined his birthday. Maybe not a good idea— but still, it’s uncomfortable trying to sit upright (and still but he can’t fidget he has to stay still he has to stay normal he has to— not now, not now, _not now_ ) with both his hands and feet bound, and talking to this guy lying down would just be weird. 

Still, not like he has much choice. 

“I’m not feeling convinced, Hedgehog.” 

“Fine, fine, talk about impatient.” and irony. “Ol’ Egghead dumped me up here on this floating island of yours t’get me outta the way of his next big plan, which is why I really need t’get back to the surface. Drop me off and I’ll be outta your quills for good.” 

“And why should I trust you? How do I know this isn’t some ploy to get to the Master Emerald?”

“I dunno anything about your big— big talky rock, alright! Would you lay off about ploys and plans and whatever?” 

Knuckles frowns even harder, which is kinda impressive, leaning forwards to plant a fist on the floor. It goes right through the head of the dirt-drawing Knuckles, who’s company Sonic would infinitely prefer right now. 

“What do you mean by ‘talky’?” 

“Oh, great. I told you I’d go nuts if you kept throwing me in this—“

Knuckles lifts his fist and slams it back down, and it’s not just Sonic’s imagination that the earth trembles a little underneath him. 

“Yeesh, alright, I get it! It was like, I dunno, a voice but not a voice? Like it was projectin’ emotion at me, stuff like gratitude an’ sadness.” Sonic hazards a sloppy shrug, and Knuckles leans back, refolding his arms. 

“Why would the Master Emerald talk to you?” He asks, but it sounds more like he’s talking to himself. 

By the time Knuckles finishes musing to himself, Sonic halfway has the ropes off— not through any intent to escape, but through simple fiddling. He looks halfway annoyed by how easily Sonic seems to be able to shed them, reaching over to grab a hold of the rope around his wrists, loose as it might be. 

“Uh—“ Sonic starts, and then stops as Knuckles rips the ropes off. Which, first, ow, ropeburn, and second— what?

“I’m choosing to trust you here hedgehog. One wrong step and I’ll throw you off my island.” 

“I’ll be on my best behaviour, scouts honour—“

“And don’t even think about touching any of the Chaos Emeralds!” Knuckles hits him with one last warning glare, before turning and driving the spikes on his fists into the wall, climbing out easily and leaving Sonic to undo the rope around his ankles in a much more delicate matter and awkwardly crawl his way out using the puncture marks left by Knuckles.

It proves ultimately unnecessary in the end, the guardian of the island has long since gone off to... wherever he went. Sonic takes the spare time now that he’s actually allowed freedom to poke around the pit they’d been keeping him in, bypassing a pile of scrap metal for a metal box with a blinking screen on it, a few buttons underneath that. If he had to take a guess at its purpose, he would say barrier generator, and it’s only the fact that it doesn’t look like it’s been built by Eggman that stops him from smashing it then and there. He doesn’t trust Knuckles to be gone, to not be watching him, and somehow he gets the feeling smashing a piece of Tails’s tech wouldn’t be a good first (second? Third??) step to winning his trust. 

Still, being contained in any capacity still leaves him with a rock in his stomach, one that he can’t go on a run to get rid of like he usually does. 

(Freak freak freak _freak_ always running always moving on always getting away coward look at South Island look at Amy look at Eggmans factories you failed you failed _you failed_ ) 

Carefully, Sonic sets the box down, walks to the tree line, and curls up into a very tight ball. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

The Master Emerald greets him with silence when Knuckles returns to its Alter, though it’s warmth sleeps through his glove as he places it on one of its many facets. ‘ _Why speak to him_ ,’ he wants to ask, ‘ _What does it mean?_ ’, but he knows that he won’t get an answer.   
  
The Master Emerald is fickle on the best of days, the Chaos Emeralds no better. He has to trust its judgement on this, as much as it rankles him. He moves away again after a while, sitting cross legged at the top of the shrine, and it’s not until the sun has begun to set that Knuckles realizes Tails really should have shown up again by now, which means he’s either more hurt than Knuckles thought, or he’s outside the barrier.   


Frowning, he props his chin up on a fist. The last thing he wants to do right now is leave the Master Emerald and the Chaos Emeralds alone, but in all the time he’s been sitting here he hasn’t seen hide nor hair of the hedgehog. Some part of him wonders at it being a ruse, waiting him out, but the Master Emeralds words still sit heavy at the back of his mind.   
  
Gratitude.   


Sadness. 

And what the hedgehog had neglected to mention, _Speed_. 

Sighing, Knuckles admits that he needs to bounce his ideas off of Tails. He can sit and muse all day and not even begin to come up with a quarter of what the young fox can produce in minutes.   


It’s as he’s leaving for the pit trap clearing that the Master Emerald nudges at him, barely a whisper, something almost designed to be lost to the winds, but Knuckles is not the guardian for nothing. 

It is a dozen words and emotions wrapped in a dozen more, layer upon layer upon layer, impossibly thick in the Master Emeralds preferred way of communication. Knuckles, even as the guardian, even with experience being the only one (until the hedgehog) to hear and understand the powerful gem, can barely scratch the surface. 

What he hears worries him.

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

  
Finally, _finally_ — he is free of that detestable rodent. If Eggman believed in greater forces such as fate, he might have found it _funny_ how the world kept placing irritating blue hedgehogs in his path to crush— but as it stands he instead finds it annoying. At least the first hedgehog had the decency to lie down and die. 

Even now, he doubts that that floating island will be able to hold that nuisance back for long.

To a lesser man, Eggman’s plan might seem foolish. A collection— not just one, but a _collection_ of infinite power sources, and he _willingly_ gives up one to trap his arch enemy with the others? 

Of course, a lesser man could not do with a single Chaos Emerald what Eggman can. The gem glows purple in his hand, reflecting light in nonsensical— Chaotic— patterns, warming his fingers even through his gloves. The raw power of it is enough to send a shiver up his spine, flavoured with promise. 

He knows Sonic as keenly as he knows himself, knows the hedgehog’s flair for heroics and stubborn streak like no other. So he knows that he is bound to butt heads with that islands irritating guardian, knows that they will fight, knows that they will weaken and tire each other. 

The emerald slides smoothly into place, his invention purring as it draws power from this impossible infinity, lighting it up like a torch. 

Eggman can’t help it; he laughs. He laughs, and laughs, and in front of him, the Death Egg comes to a beautiful, perfect, impossible life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing bad guys is fun


	5. Tornado

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonic gets into a custody battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought “oh, I’ll go to bed early tonight!” It’s five in the morning and I’m writing Sonic fanfiction

Sitting around isn’t going to get him back to fighting Eggman any faster, Sonic eventually decides, uncurling from his spot and ignoring the dark thoughts trying to drag him back. He can’t go for a run right now, so what? He can... he can adapt. 

He’s decently certain that Knuckles isn’t around right now, anyway— or at least he hopes that he isn’t, sitting around and watching a guy have a breakdown is weird, even for a guy who lives (nearly) alone on a magical floating island. Even if he is stuck in a barrier with the guy, speaking of which, Sonic picks up the barrier device. Smashing is a no-go, but he should be fine to just carry it around with him, right? Besides, if it isn’t fine for him to touch why leave it sitting there, completely unguarded? Even Egghead left a badnik or two to guard his, no matter how well hidden. In fact, it was usually the badniks that gave it away. Not that he’s seen anything of that sort up here. It’s... weirdly peaceful in a way he isn’t used to. 

(It won’t last it never lasts Eggman  _ knows _ )

Well, weirdly peaceful if you overlook the whole ‘repeatedly tied up and dumped in a pit’ thing, but that’s practically a vacation by Sonic’s standards! Heck, it didn’t even have any spikes in it. 

He needs to... not run, the thought of running puts butterflies in his throat, but maybe... a walk, or something, or go on a jog. Just to clear his head. Just to move. 

He completes one whole loop around the barrier with no sign of either Knuckles or Tails before the boredom starts to get to him. At least before he had a little excitement— dodging Knuckles, nearly falling off, getting yelled at by a rock... maybe excitement isn’t the word. 

It’s with no small amount of frustration that he loops back to the pit to pick up the barrier device, having of left it there for his jog-walk. It’s still in the same spot, untouched, and he scoops it up with a grimace. 

The buttons are still foreign to him, but he can tell exactly where the metal would buckle and short out under a well placed Spindash. He’s more used to destroying technology than he is toying with it, and it’s after a solid minute of silent scrutiny that he admits he’ll need help with shutting the barrier off. 

Knuckles, he might not know well, but he gets the feeling asking him would be a recipe for trouble. ‘Why yes, Mr. Defensive, I was hoping that you would be so kind as to shut off the thing that has been keeping me contained under your watchful eye.’ Ugh, no thanks, he’d rather spend the time hunting down Tails. 

Tucking the barrier box under an arm, Sonic grudgingly takes off at what is, to him, a crawl. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

When Knuckles reaches the pit, there’s no sign of the hedgehog anywhere, and no sign of the barrier machine. Granted, he had come out here with the intention of shutting it off, but having it and the intruder go missing so soon after the Master Emeralds parting message rankles. Part of him aches to take the frustration out physically, and so he does, leaving a fist shaped indent in one of Tails’s bigger metal scraps, accented with his spikes. It would be another thing to apologize for, if it were anyone else than Tails, who would nod and build another, more durable, punching bag. 

He isn’t very good at this trust thing, turns out, although his paranoia is warranted. By all rights he should be bundling the damned hedgehog back into the pit and filling the thing with water.  
  
Touching the Master Emerald, even if it had spoken to him, repeatedly escaping even though he was supposedly innocent, going missing with the barrier device even without a clue how it works— it’s designed to be nigh unintelligible to anyone but Tails, and Knuckles only knows how to turn it on and off because he insisted.   
  
It’s like building a machine with half the pieces and a broken wrench, something that he has seen Tails do, though not without difficulty. 

Still, if Tails can make it work and figure it out on his own, Knuckles will have to as well. (Because he might have made a terrible mistake somewhere, and he hates not knowing where.)

The Master Emerald greets him with silence as he returns to its podium, and Knuckles settles down to think against its warm surface. Short of hunting down and punching out the hedgehog again, it’s all he can do. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Sonic finds Tails through pure luck, mostly. He’s most of the way past an innocuous seeming wall when Tails stumbles out of it, smushing almost immediately into the barrier. He looks both sleepy and confused, and for a moment Sonic wants to ruffle his fur, but there’s a barrier in the way. A barrier Tails seems to be in the middle of processing. 

“Hey buddy! Mind showing me how to turn this thing off?”

Tails doesn’t respond at all— the kid must be out of it, and it takes him a minute before he realizes Sonic is standing there at all, probably yelping, but all that comes across is silence. 

Huh. Soundproof, that’s new. Usually Eggman prefers gloating (freak freak freak) whenever he manages to catch Sonic in a barrier. 

Tails seems to be coming to the same realization, as he points at his ears and shakes his head. Sonic nods and holds out the barrier box, in response to which Tails’s eyes light up, and he beckons Sonic closer, already trying to point out which buttons to press. 

But, as Sonic steps forwards, his attention is somewhere else. 

He’s looking back, past the curtain of vines being lightly swayed by Tails’s, well, tails. 

He’s looking into the cave. 

He’s seeing the shiny glint of red metal and he’s trying to figure out why it seems familiar. 

He’s realizing what he’s looking at. 

And it doesn’t make _sense_. 

A floating island, okay, sure, he’s seen the things Chaos can do on his travels. 

A flying fox? Yeah, okay. 

An overly aggressive whatever-Knuckles-is? He can deal with that. 

An apparently all powerful talking rock that yelled random words at him? No problem. 

(Freaky, all of this stuff is Freaky and oh how he hates that word)

But none of that— _none_ of that! explains why the Tornado is sitting in that cave. 

“Tails. Why do you have— have my uncle’s plane?” 

Of course, the fox doesn’t hear him, only glancing up at Sonic when he realizes his pantomimed instructions aren’t being followed, tracing the hedgehogs gaze back to the plane, and practically panicking to pull the vine curtains closed again, but it’s too late for that. 

Sonic has felt anger, before, and it’s not something he enjoys. Fear, is more familiar, but Anger is two shades darker than that and he hates it, but anger is what he’s feeling right now. 

Because there’s no reason as to why Tails could possibly have his uncles plane that sounds reasonable right now. 

He says something else, maybe an explanation, maybe an excuse, but not an inch of it gets through the barrier. 

Slowly, Sonic vision tracks down to the device in his hands. 

It would be easy to say it’s a split second decision. Spur of the moment, not thinking it through, but things have Always moved so much slower for Sonic than for anyone else, and as such it’s with the full intent of his actions that he kicks the stupid machine into a tree. 

(He knows exactly where and how to break it, which parts will give under pressure and which parts won’t, what will snap.) 

“—O!” He hears from Tails as the barrier fizzles, flickering between states, power failing as the device struggles to keep itself together. 

Full barrier, beat, no barrier, beat, full barrier, beat. It’s a rhythm you’d need super speed to get through, and even with anger sitting hard in his chest the fear drowns it for a second, but only a second. 

“The hell are you doing with my uncles plane?” He questions, but with the barrier on the fritz all that makes it through to Tails is “— hell— you— my— plane?”

Tails tears himself away from the sight of the near-broken barrier machine as Sonic’s words reach him, and then his own fair share of anger rises up to meet the hedgehogs. 

“What are you talking about? The Tornado’s mine!”

‘What— ou talk— The Torna— mine!’

Maybe that would have felt like a lie, once, but Tails stole the plane years and years ago, the time in-between enough to erase the guilt of that fact. 

“No, it’s my uncles! Why the _hell_ do you have his plane?”

‘No— y unc— he _hell_ — ou have— ane?’

That’s the sticking point of it. The Tornado is a complicated mess of things, to him. Tied so closely to his uncle, he hadn’t been able to look at it after his disappearance, and now Sonic doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if the Tornado ended up here on this island before or after Uncle Chuck die— disappeared. Doesn’t know if Tails might have a hand in _w h y_ —

“What? The Tornado is mine! I found it, I fixed it, I spent time with it, it’s _mine_!”

‘The Tor— mine! — found— fixed i— ent time— ‘s _mine_!’

Tails, in his part of this argument, doesn’t have the electric fear sitting behind his teeth that Sonic does, instead he has the muddling fog of confusion, trying to put together puzzle pieces that won’t fit. Maybe, if their argument continued, he would have been able to talk things out, they might have waited until the barrier gave up on it’s own, maybe— maybe. 

Maybe, maybe, _maybe_. 

But Sonic, angry and scared and emotional, takes a step forwards, blinking between the barrier with a snap of speed, so suddenly and unexpectedly in Tails’s space that the fox falls backwards in fright, a hand raised to protect his face. 

He looks scared of Sonic. 

He looks _scared._

Sonic doesn’t wait to see the look shift into horror. 

* * *

(It’s some sort of cosmic irony, maybe, that Sonic moves too fast. Too fast for Uncle Chuck, too fast for Amy, and now, too fast for Tails.) 

* * *

(Never too fast for Eggman.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled with Knuckles segment (y’all are seeing like draft five of that scene), but the sonic-tails fight really wrote itself. Sure would be a shame if there were... some misunderstandings >:3c  
> As I said at the top note, it’s very early in the morning for me, so please forgive any spelling/capitalization errors. I know there are a few lurking in there...  
> a few things my hellbrain has decided might need clarification:  
> Sonic and Knuckles just missed each other, by, like, a matter of seconds.  
> Tails is somewhat defensive about the tornado for a few reasons. Mostly because it’s only thanks to it that he met knuckles, but of course he isn’t going to mention that to Sonic (a relative stranger.)  
> Yes, Tails took the tornado well after Sonic left the house, but of course Sonic has no way of knowing that. (It might seem implausible that Sonic never even looked in on the Tornado after Chuck ‘vanished’ but that’s.. mostly based on my own personal experience with grief. Some things are just too much too soon.)  
> Gee sure hope things get better for Sonic soon.


	6. Searching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soooonic, whereeee aaare youuuuu...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *slaps my hands on the table excitedly* Sonic Movie.... 2!

By the time the barrier fizzles out completely, Tails has practically worn a new groove into the floor of the cave with all his pacing, twisting the conversation with Sonic over and over, trying to figure out where he might have gone wrong. 

He has the sinking suspicion he knows who’s plane he might have (accidentally) stolen. 

The end of the conversation, in particular, bothers him, because he doesn’t understand. One moment Sonic had been on the other side of the barrier, and the next he had been so suddenly in the fox’s space that he had fallen over, and though he’s been on Knuckle’s island for years, there are some things that you don’t forget and falling over as if pushed had been an unpleasant reminder. Then, the next second, before Tails could pick himself up and explain, Sonic had been gone. 

His barrier device is pretty badly damaged, but not broken. It’ll take a while, but he can fix it, and it’s while checking it over for shorting wires or jagged edges that it occurs to Tails that if the doctors story holds true, then Sonic should have been able to turn his barrier device into slag. Even from a distance, his carrier had looked formidable, much tougher than his barrier in about every way. 

But here it was, not working, sure, but fixable. 

He hopes his relationship with Sonic is fixable...

He would go looking for the blue hedgehog, broken barrier device or not, but mostly right now he wants to talk to Knuckles. 

* * *

The guardian of the Master Emerald, is, as ever, guarding the Master Emerald. He doesn’t acknowledge Tails at all, a sure sign that he’s lost in thought, so Tails takes a seat near the base of the stairs next to where he keeps his spare toolkit, rummaging around for a pair of thicker gloves and a screwdriver, attacking the hinges of his barrier device with gusto.  


Usually falling into the rhythm of work is easy, something similar to the meditation Knuckles sometimes talks about. Not this time. He can’t stop thinking about the half of the conversation lost to the barrier, where he might have misunderstood and gone wrong.

A crushed wire sends a shock through even the thicker gloves, and Tails shakes his head to clear it. Working on something so sensitive, he can’t afford to be distracted, but the look on Sonic’s face before he had vanished sticks in his mind. He can’t put a name to the emotion, but it’s something... familiar. 

“Tails?” 

Surprised by the interruption, Tails fumbles his screwdriver and sends it bouncing down the steps, rolling to a stop in the grass at their base. By the time he looks up from its fall, Knuckles is standing on the step next to him, frowning down at the shattered barrier device. 

“What happened? Was it that hedgehog? I swear, if he—“ 

“No, no! Well, yes, but... it’s complicated?” Tails tries a grin, but he gets the feeling it communicates awkward more than anything else. He’s half expecting Knuckles to go marching off on a quest to find Sonic and drag him back to the pit, but instead the echidna visibly hesitates before sitting down next to Tails. He doesn’t say anything, but Tails has long since learned to read his cues, and it’s only after a moment to reorganize his thoughts does he start talking. 

Knuckles doesn’t add anything until Tails reaches the point where Sonic somehow got through the flickering barrier, where he vanished into thin air. 

“Chaos control... but all the emeralds are here. If he still had one on him, I would know about it, so how...” 

“Maybe it isn’t that?” Tails suggests, frowning. Knuckles, out of the two of them, knows more about Chaos energy than Tails probably ever will, and for that reason Tails is willing to look at other angles, ones the echidna might overlook in favour of his area of expertise. 

“Yeah?” Knuckles adopts a thoughtful expression, rubbing at his chin. 

“Yeah! Maybe he has super speed, or something?” 

“Super speed?” 

“I have two tails that I can fly with, and you can punch hard enough to create earthquakes. Being fast isn’t out of the question.” 

Knuckles chuckles, hauling himself to his feet and proffering a hand to Tails. “So, super speed, huh?”

“That’s— yeah, maybe, it’s a theory.” Tails nods, and accepts Knuckles hand up. 

“Cmon. We should probably find him before he runs off the edge of Angel Island, then.” 

Tails thinks back to his first— or, second, really, meeting of Sonic, and really hopes that isn’t the case. 

* * *

It’s an unpleasant reminder of how big Angel Island is when you’re looking for something specific on it. While Knuckles knows every book and cranny, Tails has a much more general idea of where things are, the specifics trip him up. As such, Knuckles takes a low, thorough sweep, and Tails flies high above and keeps an eye out for anything strange. His only tracker was attached to the barrier, a serious oversight now that he thinks about it, and even while searching for Sonic, some part of him is thinking up schematics, and tallying parts that he does and does not have. 

It’s probably due to this that he misses it when Angel Island shakes. Once, twice, the island rocks like a boat lost to the sea, but Tails continues to fly above it, unaware of the turmoil below. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Knuckles barely regains his balance before the island shakes a second time, this time unbalancing him enough to send himself rolling head over heels. He slams to a halt against a rock, grimacing at the bruises that are sure to form. It takes a minute for Angel Island to even out and stop shaking, but once it does Knuckles is up and moving. 

He promised Tails to help look for Sonic, but some things will always take precedence, and the Master Emerald and safety of his island are some of those things. 

It feels like far too often, lately, that he’s had to run for the Master Emerald. At least, this time he’s fairly confident a certain blue hedgehog isn’t to blame. If he is... well. Knuckles will always protect his island. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

It’s starting to get darker, almost too dark for Tails to see, but he doesn’t want to give up his search just yet. If Sonic really does have super speed, or something similar, then he could be anywhere on Angel Island by now, and Tails know that a lot of zones are dangerous, especially at night.  


Hydrocity and Lava Reef Zone are two of the worst, and it’s Lava Reef Zone that he’s strafing right now, searching for any hint of blue amongst all the, well, lava. 

There’s nothing, just burbling pits and steaming rocks, and eventually Tails lifts himself back out of the area, taking a moment to orient himself in the skies before turning towards the setting sun, trying to gage how much time he has left before true darkness sets in. 

The sight that greets him isn’t a sunset at all. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Knuckles reaches the Master Emerald’s temple quickly, thankful he had gone slow and steady while searching. Especially since, even with the short interlude, there’s already a swarm of robots filling the clearing, buzzing and clicking, the rare few trying the stairs. The metal exterior of the closest one crumples under his fist, and Knuckles tosses it’s short-circuiting body at another bot, the two colliding in an explosion of sparks and metal. Shaken, a Flicky and a Ricky crawl out of the rubble, each sparing Knuckles a grateful glance before taking off to lick their wounds. 

Anger fills the echidna— trying to steal the Master Emerald is unforgivable enough on its own, but using animal slaves to do it? 

The rest of the bots are easy enough to deal with when all he can see is red. 

Taking a moment to breathe amongst the wreckage, Knuckles swears that Eggman has it coming to him. (And that he owes Sonic an apology.) 

Then he looks up. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Oh, no.

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Filling the sky like a grim spectre of death, the Death Egg’s eyes glow with malice. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my GOD did this chapter fight me! I hope it’s alright, because boy did my blood, sweat, and tears go into this one.
> 
> On another note! How interested would y’all be in a sonic boom; rise of lyric au? Because I have some fun ideas on how to fix that mess of a plot


	7. Volcanic Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonic has a minor crisis and then dips himself in a volcano

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the Rise of Lyric au is a go! I’ve plotted some of it out already and I’m super excited for where it’s going.

Maybe, distantly, some part of Sonic had been hoping to fit in. Not a fully formed hope, of course, he had already tried that with the Chaotix and with Amy and it hadn’t worked out, but.   
But Tails has two tails, and Knuckles— well, Knuckles’s whole deal sort of speaks for itself, and Sonic has wondered if, maybe, even if they were siding with Eggman...

Fast, faster, _faster_ , the greens and browns of the forest smearing into each other as Sonic reaches the sound barrier and pushes its limits. 

It’s stupid to move this fast on unfamiliar land, on an island that has as many cliffs as it does traps. 

The vegetation starts thinning, and Sonic blindly veers left, barely avoiding tripping over thick roots that would be perfect for sliding down in any other circumstance.

The turn takes him back into the woods, nearly into the trunk of a colossal tree, but he’s able to turn his run into something vertical, the tree carrying his weight until, barely a second later, he’s at the top and over, momentum carrying him right back down. 

(Usually a run like this would be exhilarating, but he can’t remember the last time he ran for the joy of it.)

His careening path carries him through the woods until they finally break on the rocky side of a mountain, which Sonic pushes his way up much the way he did with the old oak— recklessly, and with no guarantee of a way back down. 

Halfway up, his run carries him to a sturdy ledge, sparsely populated with greenery and a few crudely carved wooden spikes. They’re ancient, and one of them crumbles into a pile of sticks and rope when Sonic touches it, and so he takes a moment to just... breathe. 

Taking off in a blind panic like he had probably made everything worse, upon reflection. Getting through the barrier, he could have brushed off— maybe that Chaos Control thing Knuckles mentioned, but taking off after that? Not a chance.

And then there was the look on Tails’s face. 

It didn’t quite match the look Amy had given him— over time he had come to realize that was more horror than fear, but the look on Tails’s face... 

He had looked like Eggman. Not maniacal scheming Eggman, but Eggman recovering from their first encounter, Eggman who ducked behind the tiny windshield on his carrier and spat the word freak like venom. 

Maybe this whole thing was doomed from the start. Maybe it wasn’t, and Sonic— and Sonic screwed it up. 

The wind on the island is surprisingly calm, for something so high in the air— or maybe Sonic has gotten so used to being buffeted by it that even a hurricane would barely register. It carries the promise of rain, as the sun begins to slink below the horizon, and Sonic shakes his head free of his thoughts. 

If nothing else, he has to try and get the Tornado back, and... apologize to Tails. The young fox might not even want to see him, but Sonic has run from enough already, and with the Tornado in Tails’s care it’s not a conversation he’ll be able to avoid. 

He takes a moment to stretch, muscles protesting from the sudden sprint through the woods, when the island judders underneath him. Thankfully the platform he’s situated on remains stable, but a few others above him crumble and send rocks rolling down his way. It takes a couple close calls— the closest being when the island shakes a second time and sends a renewed barrage, but Sonic manages to avoid being flattened or similarly bowled over. He gives the mountainside a quick look over, not trusting that there won’t be a third rumble when something orange situated above the peak catches his eye. 

Tails is seemingly frozen in place, gaze fixed on something on the other side of the mountain. He’s too high to reach, and too far for a shout to carry, and some part of Sonic considers taking the chance offered to him and beelining for the Tornado. 

But then, what is Tails looking at? 

Sonic is about to finish climbing to the peak, and maybe catch a glimpse of what has the fox captivated, but before he can move Tails ducks under something— it looks like a barrage of Buzz Bomber shots, but even for a flying badnik this is _way_ too high in the air. 

Tails tries to dodge another volley, but panic makes his movements jerky, and one catches him in a tail, and then Sonic is moving before Tails can even begin to fall.

Sonic is a lot of things. A freak, sure. A screw up, a mess up, the thing that drove uncle Chuck away. 

But above all else, above all of that, he’s a hero. 

(Or he’s trying to be. He’s trying so, so hard to be.)

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Tails is caught, _horrified_ , hanging in the air. He should be moving— should be helping Knuckles, should be finding Sonic, _should be_ , should be doing something, but all he can do is stare. 

Because the Death Egg is staring right back. 

He doesn’t know how long he’s been caught in that things gaze, how many seconds have passed, but it only takes a single robot to break him out of it. It’s wings hum with a metallic buzz, multifaceted eyes crafted from glass and plastic fixated on his hovering form. 

He should be moving— and Tails drops under its first volley of shots, only barely remembering to catch himself. The machine buzzes after him, firing another volley, and Tails, in all his panic, doesn’t manage to fully dodge this one. 

It feels like static, at first, a horrible tingling sensation like a limb gone to sleep from sitting on it too long, and Tails doesn’t realize that means that he’s been shot until his afflicted tail gives out, leaving him unable to fly, a single tail not enough to sustain his weight. 

He has enough time to realize he’s in serious trouble— _how fast he’ll fall and how hard he’ll hit_ and how much that robot is coming around for a second round when something slams into his side. 

It’s an unpracticed hit, a bit like the first few times Knuckles had to save him from dangerous updrafts or when his curiosity got the best of him, but it breaks his momentum, momentarily. 

The thing about Lava Reef Zone is its location— the crater of a volcano is a long fall even when both his tails work, and the fact his rescuer hasn’t glided to the wall yet tells Tails there’s little chance of that happening. Black smoke belches up to meet them, blinding Tails until he can blink the tears out of his eyes, and by then the unstable platforms that make up Lava Reef Zone are so much closer than they were before. 

He manages to tear his eyes away from the approaching ground long enough to flick them sideways— blue fur— Sonic— maybe if he wasn’t holding onto Tails, he could—

Impact rattles up and down his spine, jolting his injured tail harshly, followed shortly by the disorienting feeling of moving back up. They stall for a moment in the air before falling again— and then two more times, losing height each time, until they come to a stop. 

It’s hardly the best rescue Tails has ever experienced, but he’s in one piece and somehow not roasting to death in lava, and that’s enough for him. 

It takes a moment for him to realize he has a death grip on Sonic’s arm, and a second more to relax it enough for the hedgehog to pull away. Sonic backs away, but confronting him is hardly on Tails’s list of priorities— instead he looks for what could have possibly broken their fall enough to not kill them, and.

It’s bounce pad. Barely big enough for one of them, let alone both, and even the cheery blue of it is hardly enough to stand out against the reds, oranges, blacks and browns of an active volcano. 

It’s then that he turns to Sonic, a dozen questions on the tip of his tongue, but the hedgehog suddenly isn’t there anymore. 

Tails starts to turn, to get up and look for him because Lava Reef Zone is bad enough as it is and the— the crazy flying airship probably only destabilized it further— oh— the _airship_ — he has to talk to Knuckles and tell Sonic and get the Tornado and  do something—  pain lances up the back of his spine as a hand closed around the base of his injured tail. Tails doesn’t quite manage to bite back the yelp that produces, and he twists as best he can without pulling on his tail any further to see what Sonic is doing. 

“Sorry, just have to...” there’s a brief tingling sensation, much like when he was first shot— he got shot, he nearly fell into Lava Reef Zone— _later_ , Tails, later— and then the pain is gone. 

Sonic steps back, further than he probably needs to, putting himself dangerously close to the edge of the platform, and holds up something jagged and metal. “Had to get the stinger out,” he shrugs, and then drops it in the lava. 

Tails just stares— he really should say something, Sonic is starting to look more and more nervous but. Nothing comes to mind. 

Well, okay, maybe that’s not completely true— a lot of things come to mind, like “ _do you have super speed_ ” and “ _how did you hit the bounce pad from so high_ ” and “ _Eggman!_ ” and “ _how many times have you been shot by those things to know how to get the stinger out_ ” and “ _why did you try to catch me when you can’t fly_ ” and “ _do you want the Tornado back?_ ”, except he can’t get any of them out, none of them seem right. 

So, instead; “Thanks, Sonic.” 

Sonic looks taken a back for the barest of moments, before a hesitant smile starts to spread. “Anytime, buddy. Now how do we get out of here?”

Tails pushes himself to his feet— even without the pain from the stinger, his tail is still giving off a pins and needles feeling, and he gets the idea that flying wouldn’t be the smartest right now, not if he wanted to risk falling again. Still, he’s lived on this island for a long time, and Knuckles is nothing if not of a bit of a worry wart— Tails could probably lead them out with his eyes closed. 

“Follow me!” 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Knuckles has only just finished smashing the second wave of robots to pieces when he feels it— a disturbance with the Master Emerald. He’s moving before he realizes it, fist leading, and the blue hedgehog reaching for the Emerald only barely manages to duck out of the way. 

Knuckles is about ready to tear his quills out with frustration— so much back and forth with this damned blue hedgehog— or maybe pound him into the ground as payback, but something strikes him as off before he can move. 

Red eyes instead of green, shiny metal instead of sleek quills, a whining engine instead of a heartbeat— this is a robot. It emits a low pitched, almost warning sounding beep, and then flickers out of view. 

Frantic, Knuckles tries to follow it, but it’s moving incredibly fast. It kicks(?) the back of his head, tremendous impact followed by a mocking trill, and Knuckles stumbles forwards, barely catching himself before he tips down the stairs. 

He realizes its goal a second too late— stupid, stupid, _stupid_!— and the machine lifts the Master Emerald from its resting spot easily. 

Determination surges, and Knuckles lunges at the precious gem, understanding that shattering it might be his only chance to prevent it from falling into enemy hands, but with another mocking beep, the robot is gone. 

The Master Emerald is gone. 

With a horrid shifting sensation, Angel Island starts to fall. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it annoying when I respond to comments? I hope not lmao


	8. Resolutions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggman catches a lucky break, Tails learns the power of hitting things really hard, Knuckles wants a nap, and Sonic has a terrible memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, it’s been a while, huh? pretty much immediately after the last update I got my wisdom teeth out, meaning that this chapters first draft was... unique. (Uncle Chuck was referred to as Nunchunckle Uck fairly consistently. Knuckles and Shadow were interchangeable. I started writing about ninja turtles halfway through.) I’ve smoothed out hopefully all of that by now!

Victory tastes so sweet. With the Master Emerald within reach, the Chaos Emeralds so close behind, and Angel Island trembling under the force of his Death Egg— and with Sonic nowhere to be seen— Eggman feels... content. 

A few taps on his multitude of screens sends swarms of badniks out to survey the isle, combing it for life and chaos energy. It’s bare minutes when the first report comes back, a wave of blips from badniks destroyed, and Eggman doesn’t hesitate before sending Metal out for the Master. With that in his control, the rest will fall in line, he’s sure. 

The rush when Metal returns with the Master Emerald is a high that he could ride forever— without that damned hedgehog to interfere with his plans, everything moves so smoothly. 

The giant gem glimmers promisingly, and with another gesture he instructs Metal on where to store it. With a single Emerald, the Death Egg is a magnum opus, a wealth of power he could only have imagined. With the Master? With all of them? His moustache trembles in excitement at the thought. 

First, though...

The Island dips and wavers underneath him, falling in short bursts before recovering, losing height every time. With a final, shuddering crash, it collides with the ocean, and Eggman laughs and laughs and laughs. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Having your home drop out from underneath you is terrifying— Knuckles feels his heart fly to his throat. It’s instinct that propels him, a layover from the generations of Emerald guardians before him that has him moving— on his own, the weight of failure would be near crushing. He throws himself into place where the Master Emerald was supposed to sit, anchoring himself to the falling island with his knuckles, before reaching out to the emeralds with every ounce of focus he has. 

The Emeralds glow in response to his reach, brilliantly hot stars of energy where the Master has been a galaxy, but they are enough. Six paths of burning energy that take everything to maintain— and the distant whisper of the Master— and the even quieter murmur that is another Emerald, close enough to the Master to cry out but too far away for him to reach— and then he can’t think about that anymore. 

The descent is rocky— Knuckles knows how to manipulate Chaos energy, but not like this, not so much of it, not without the Master as guidance and counsel. Still, compared to the plummeting crash that it would have been, their jagged descent is almost gentle. 

The face of the ship seems to sneer down at him, and Knuckles yanks his knuckles free with a grimace. His muscles feel worn out and wobbly in a way they haven’t since he was very young and facing the realization that he was completely alone on Angel Island.   


Experience tells him that trying to stand up right now is a bad idea, but he forces himself to his feet anyway— there are still robots to deal with, though their number is reduced by the fall. He tries a step forwards and can barely get his foot off the ground, it’s like his limbs have turned to jelly. It’s a Herculean task to raise his fists, but he does anyway and then holds them there. If he can’t go to the robots, he’ll have to wait until they come to him. 

They communicate for a moment in a scattered collection of beeps and chirps, reminiscent of some of Tails’s earlier inventions, on warm afternoons when the kit had discovered a fresh pile of scrap and was vibrant with ideas, and Knuckles finds himself drifting. Reality nudges at him, and it’s like the island is falling again, for a horrifying moment. He reaches out to the chaos emeralds and they push back, and then he’s squinting against the glare of—

Reality _slams_ back into him like being hit by the Tornado, and he barely manages to turn his fall into a roll, barely avoiding the lasers the robots fired at him. The move leaves his head spinning— he needs to move again— they’re going to shoot— he can’t get his legs under him— the world is starting to _t i l t_ —

There’s a yell as an orange smear tackles one of the robots, raising something silver and wrench shaped before slamming it down with a crunch. Tails scrambles away from the robot before it detonates and to the next, yelling the whole way. Knuckles forces himself to stay up, to watch until the very last of the robots are gone, just in case, but Tails and his wrench are dealing with them with ease.   
Pride, soft and warm fills his chest— they may be fundamentally different, things that come so naturally to Knuckles are often things Tails has to struggle for, and vice versa, but he’s at least managed to impart on the young fox how to smash things and smash them well. 

Tails is clearing up the last of the bots now, using one of his tails to grip one of the caterpillar like bots, the other hanging limp as he rides. This one is bucking and churning, servos screeching as the primitive intelligence of the thing tries to wrench itself free— and while that isn’t working, it is managing to avoid the worst of Tails’s strikes. The fox tries for a moment longer, before pausing, and instead twisting on his perch to attack the screws of the thing, taking it apart even as it struggles. 

Eventually a flicky pulls itself free, looking rather dizzy, and totters off to the side, where it collapses in a heap of blue feathers. Tails watches it go with a smile on his face, ignorant of the wasp robot rising behind him, eyes locked on his back. Knuckles tries to move, to shout, to warn him, but he barely manages to draw in the air to start before the wasp is gone, shredded to pieces by a ball of blue spines. 

Sonic bounces to a stop, breathing heavily, before giving Knuckles a cheeky salute. Tails turns, and gives him a thumbs up, and Knuckles...

Knuckles sits down. And then lies down, flat on his back, staring back up at the Death Egg. Is it coming closer? He almost can’t find it in himself to care. Let it— it’ll just make it easier to get the Master back later. First, maybe a nap...

“— _is he oka_ —“

“— _tried from... stop the fall_ —“

Quiet conversation catches his attention for a moment, but Knuckles chooses to ignore it. He’s tired enough as is without having to deal with the blue hedgehog and all the turmoil he brings. So long as he doesn’t try to touch the emeralds—

The emeralds!

Knuckles snaps back upright, barely avoiding Tails, who had been leaning over him. He lets out a startled yelp, but Knuckles doesn’t have the breath to spare for an apology. 

“There’s another Emerald!”

“You mean the big green one?”

“What? No! That’s the Master Emerald! There’s another Emerald on that ship!” 

Tails, recovered from his scare, cranes his head back to look at the Death Egg, tapping his chin. “I guess that explains how he’s powering that thing.”

“Eggman? Using something powerful to his own gain? Colour me surprised.”

Knuckles lies back down, burst of adrenaline from his realization deserting him. Still, he refuses to close his eyes again, staring up at the Death Egg in what might be the worlds most pathetic challenge. 

“I have to get up there somehow...” _Sonic_. At least they’re on the same page. 

“Even if I could use my tails, I wouldn’t be able to take your weight for that long.” _Tails_. He picked up on something being wrong during the fight, but—

“What’s wrong with your tails?” He manages to drag out— he doesn’t remember seeing any blood, but if Tails is trying to hide an injury again Knuckles will get up and _make_ him bandage it, exhaustion or not. 

“Oh! I got— uh. One of the Buzz Bombers managed to clip me. Nothing serious! I just can’t really... feel one of my tails right now.”

It takes effort to drag his gaze over to Tails, but once he manages, “Once we get the Master back, I am teaching you how to dodge things.”

There’s a beat of silence, during which Tails directs a wide eyed gaze to something just out of his view— Sonic, probably— and then back down to Knuckles. “The Master Emerald’s gone!”

Wonderful. He’s so glad someone else noticed. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Tails had known, on some level, that something had happened to the Master Emerald, but other things had been a lot more pressing. Like Angel Island falling, or Knuckles nearly being shot by the badniks and collapsing, or the apparent seventh emerald— it hadn’t really registered that they were standing (and lying) exactly where the big gem was supposed to sit. 

“What happened?” Is the next thing out of his mouth, but that’s obvious too— Eggman happened. 

Sure enough, “Eggman,” Knuckles groans, “Eggman happened.”

Tails ignores the twisting in his gut— maybe if he hadn’t gone to look for Sonic and instead fixed the barrier, or maybe if he went right back to Knuckles when he saw the Death Egg, or maybe if he— but there’s no point on dwelling on maybes right now. Instead, he turns to Sonic, ready to tell him that he can take the Tornado ( _it’s okay, it’s probably actually his anyway_ ), except no one’s there. 

Something must be showing on his face, because Knuckles groans again. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Sonic walks to the treeline, glancing back once to make sure Tails isn’t watching. Instead, he’s still looking down at Knuckles, and Sonic feels... complicated. 

Guilty, mostly, because it was his being here in the first place that caused all this. Relief, a little bit, because at least they’re both still okay (for a relative value of the word), and they can keep an eye on the rest of the Emeralds, and then a tangled knot of emotions that he doesn’t even want to start to approach. Tails has turned away from Knuckles, is starting to look around the clearing, look for him, and Sonic throws himself into the familiar pattern of running. 

It takes him longer than he would like to admit to find the cave where the Tornado is being kept, and the sight of it stirs up another complicated ball of emotion. It was Uncle Chucks, sure, but Sonic was the one who left it to rust away in that house. Tails taking care of it is probably for the best, the kid knows a lot more about engineering that Sonic probably ever will. 

It shows, too. The Tornado looks beautiful, exactly like how she was in her prime. Sonic runs a glove over one of the wings and it comes away clean, no hint of dirt or dust. He ignores memories of pestering Uncle Chuck for rides, of wondering if he could outrun the Tornado, of balancing into the wings for the first time. 

The upholstery on the seat is new— or at least it’s not the pin-holed, comfortable thing from his memories. The controls look the same, and sitting in the seat looking down at them, Sonic can do remember seeing Uncle Chuck gripping the yoke, flipping the switches, resting where his hands rest. 

Here’s the thing about a child with super speed: their attention span tends to be awful. Watching Uncle Chuck fly the plane was exciting when he did spirals and loops and dives, not when he turned it on and did pre-flight checks, and made it take off. 

Sonic is faced with the realization that he has no idea how to fly his Uncles plane. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

“I’ll watch the Chaos Emeralds.”

“But you can barely—“

“I said I’ll watch em!”

Tails pauses, arguments dying on the top of his tongue. Knuckles looks, well, like he’s died twice over and been dragged through a bush backwards while he was at it, but his voice is threaded with the same stubborn resolve as always. 

Besides, with the Master Emerald gone...

“Okay.”

Knuckles grins for a moment, before letting the expression drop as he heaved himself back up into a sitting position, clearly willing to hold his place for however long it’ll take. “Now go on, get outta here, stop that hedgehog from... whatever he’s doing now.” 

“Stealing my plane, probably,” Tails starts, and then pauses, “or, stealing back his plane? borrowing the plane I borrowed from him—“ 

“Just get going!”

“Right!”

* * *

It takes Tails barely any time to reach the Tornado at all, but considering he was racing against someone who (probably) has super speed, he’s surprised that the cheery red of the Tornado is still there to greet him. Sonic is in the pilots seat, staring down at the controls, brow furrowed, and Tails takes a moment to assess the scene before speaking. 

“It probably looks a little different than you remember, huh?”

Sonic jumps about a foot in the air, whipping around to stare at Tails. 

“I, uh... had to change it up a couple times. The worst was when Knuckles— I can pilot it for you, if you want.” 

It’s hard to tell what thoughts are passing through Sonic’s head as he glances back down at the controls, and then back over and Tails, and Tails...

Tails really hopes that he’ll say yes, that he’ll be able to help here too. He had been too scared to fight the buzz bomber and then too late to really help Knuckles and he wants to help because this is his home, because—

“Alright, buddy, wheel’s all yours.” Sonic pops out of the pilot seat, instead opting to take a precarious spot on the wing on the plane. Tails grins widely before stealing his spot, the Tornado purring to life under his hands.

Sonic whistles low in appreciation, something soft and nostalgic in his eyes, and then Tails is nudging the Tornado out of her cave, convincing the wind to catch under her wings to carry them to the Death Egg and the Master Emerald, and whatever else Eggman has on board. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think once I finish Super Sonic Speed, before I hop on over to the rise of lyric fix-it, I’m gonna edit this a bit. Nothing major! There’s just a few rocky areas and scrapped details that I wanna smooth out once I’m done. (I think I mentioned the barrier being electrical at one point, and that clearly didn’t carry lmao)
> 
> Scrapped bit of dialogue: “Alright, the wheel’s all yours, buddy.”  
> “Actually, it’s called a yoke.”  
> “Not a very funny one.”


	9. Aboard The Death Egg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonic and Tails deal with a few obstacles, some worse than others.

The Death Egg hangs in the sky, faint hum and clank of machinery its only companion. The Tornado climbs quickly, looping around to maintain distance from the ominous ship.

Eggman lets them come. Oh, he could send out legions of Buzz Bombers, or Metal, or even the prototype Silver Sonic, and even as he opens the bay doors he keeps the ships weapons trained on the tiny plane, a promise and a reminder to himself that he’s winning this. 

Interestingly, Sonic isn’t coming alone. No, that freak of a fox is accompanying him, as the pilot so skillfully guiding them up. 

Eggman remembers every past failure agains that wretched hedgehog. He remembers every success, too, as rare as they were. Of course, he remembers the first battle with Metal Sonic. He remembers how reluctant Sonic was to fight around that girl. 

This could get... _interesting_. Eggman lets a smile split his face in two. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

“Go back down.”

“What? No! I’m here to help you, Sonic!”

“You helped by getting me up here, kid, this is my fight.”

“Well that’s my home! And Eggman is the one threatening it, if Knuckles could be he would be up here too, you don’t get to take this on alone.”

Sonic looks momentarily frustrated, arms crossed and foot tapping from where he stands in front of the plane. Tails considers sticking his tongue out at him from where he’s seated, but doing that usually makes Knuckles attack him and he doesn’t want to risk it.

The hedgehog sighs, and takes a step forwards, and Tails hurriedly yanks a panel up and pulls out a couple important wires. Nothing that can’t be fixed in a hurry, but Sonic doesn’t know that.

Then he gives into his temptations and sticks his tongue out.

Unlike Knuckles, Sonic doesn’t lunge forwards to attack him, but he does hurry over to look at what Tails has done to the plane, flipping a couple switches and letting out a frustrated groan when nothing responds.

“Fine then. You can wait here with the Tornado.”

“All alone? In this— this flying doomship filled with enemies?”

Sonic looks very unimpressed at Tails’s antics, and after a moment the fox relents.“I just want to help you,” he says, and it’s true.

Sonic drags a hand over his quills, looking indecisive, and after a moment he hops back off the Tornado and sighs. “Alright. But if I tell you to run, you run.”

As if bookmarking their conversation, the giant bay doors choose that moment to swing shut. For a moment, there’s darkness, and then artificial lighting kicks in, harsh and sterile. A projection of Eggmans grinning face lights up the interior of the bay doors, and he wastes no time.

“Sonic! How nice of you to come, and you’ve even brought a friend! It’s a shame neither of you will be making it out alive. Now then, I have other business to attend to, I’m sure Silver Sonic will be happy to show you to your graves! Ta ta!” The projection winks out.

“Is he... always like that?”

“I think that was him in a good mood,” Sonic dismisses, before turning as a second, significantly smaller set of doors swing open. He takes two steps towards them before glancing back at Tails, “Are you coming or not?”

“Oh! Right!” Tails scrambles our of the plane, wincing as his second tail hits the ground with a thud. Still numb, then.

Even without flight, he still catches up to Sonic easily, and the duo enter the doors at the same time. The room that greets them belongs more in one of Knuckles’s ancestors zones than it does on a flying egg shaped aircraft, and Tails has to take a moment to adjust to the sight. There are loops and twists and lava filled pits, interspersed with badniks and dangerously sharp spikes. Tails only hesitates for a moment before following behind Sonic, who hadn’t stopped at all.

The first few platforms are simple enough to traverse, but as they progress through the zone more and more it feels like it was built with someone else in mind. Which, Tails supposes, makes sense— if his theory about Sonic having super speed proves to be true, then this zone would be a breeze, for all its tricks and traps.

He slams his one working tail into the head of one of the bug shaped badniks— the one with the spots, he thinks Sonic called it a Motobug?—, and turns in time to see Sonic curl into a ball of quills, leaping up and crushing a line of badniks. If Tails’s theory of super speed is true, then... why isn’t Sonic using it? Why hasn’t Sonic used it, actually? He has his suspicions, of course, but he doesn’t want to leap to an incorrect conclusion.

(He thinks, for a moment, about Sonic blipping through the barrier, about how he had been out of reach and then suddenly there. He thinks about falling into a volcano with no one in sight, and being caught.)

((He also thinks about what Knuckles has and hasn’t told him about Chaos.))

“Hey, you alright?”

The question catches Tails by surprise, and he snaps to attention. Sonic looks a mix of concerned and unimpressed— it’s a look he’s gotten plenty from Knuckles over the years.

“Oh, I’m fine! These things,” he nudged what’s left of the Motobug with a shoe, “are pretty flimsily constructed.”

Sonic chuckles, “Don’t go telling Egghead that, he’ll blow a gasket... actually, please do tell him that, I’d love to see the look on his face.”

Tails grimaces, “His smile is bad enough already.” and then, after a moment of consideration, “This zone is pretty difficult, though. It’d probably be easier if I could fly through it...”

Speaking of which, the base of his tail is starting to tingle, a bit— that’s probably a good thing, though he’s not looking forwards to the pins-and-needles feeling of a limb gone to sleep.

Sonic has just opened his mouth to respond when a nearby panel snaps open, revealing Eggmans smug face. It’s a projection, marked but the blue lines wavering through it, but it still wastes no time laughing at them.

“Struggling with this, are we now, Sonic? Looks like someone’s losing his touch!”

The panel snaps shut again. Sonic shrugs, sighing. “So much for having something better to do with his time.”

Tails frowns, “I think it was prerecorded. He addressed you, not me, and I was the one speaking.” Tails pauses, running their conversation over in his head again, before repeating, “This zone is pretty difficult.”

There’s a moments delay, and then the panel snaps open again, “Struggling with this, are we now, Sonic? Looks like someone’s—“

“I don’t know if that’s impressive, or just sad.”

“More like creepy. Is he listening to us right now?”

“Maybe, you never know with Eggy. Cmon, we’re nearly halfway through.”

The rest of the zone doesn’t get any easier, and it’s only though cooperation that they get past parts of it at all.

Loops. Tails is never doing loops again if he can’t fly through them. 

Still, they make it to the end, and unfairly, Sonic barely looks out of breath. Still, he takes pity on Tails, and instead of rushing ahead into the next room he takes a seat on the edge of the ending platform. Gratefully, Tails joins him, fanning himself with his tail. The pins-and-needles sensation had really started to set in about five minutes ago, and he’ll take any excuse to rest for a moment and hope they’ll go away. 

They don’t, so instead he decides to break the awkward silence between them. The ship is still filled with noise— hums and clanks and faint metallic screeching. “Is it.. usually like this?”

“Hm?”

Tails isn’t sure how to put his thoughts into words, but he tries anyway— “You know, dangerous, and disruptive, and...” he waves a hand around, trying to capture shape of what he wants to say. Knuckles would get it, he thinks, and suddenly he feels very... “lonely.”

“... it isn’t... always lonely. Sometimes Eggy decides to keep things fresh with Metal Sonic, or he sends his little robot minions to yell terrible insults. Guess he’s just saving the bigger stuff for later.” He shrugs. 

That isn’t exactly what Tails was getting at, but it’s enough of an answer anyway. “How long have you been fighting him alone?”

Sonic stands, rather abruptly. “I think that’s enough of a heart-to heart for today, buddy. Let’s just get the rest of this over with, yeah? Then you can go back to your island and I can go back to my life.”

(How much of this is your life? Tails thinks, but doesn’t ask.)

“Okay.” He joins Sonic in standing, and brushes his front off even though there’s no dirt on him. “That was enough of a rest for me, anyway.”

It’s about then that he suddenly becomes very aware of the background noise, which had sort of faded into his subconscious as they talked. That metallic grinding noise— was it always so loud? 

Tails turns to the doorway, and finds his answer as the metal of it bursts outwards, crumpling away in a cacophony of screeches as a shape forced itself through. Tails sees enough to make out fingers— thick, silver fingers, with tips clearly sharp enough to tear through steel, and then it’s lunging at him. 

Things happen in heartbeats. He takes a step backwards, off the edge. The feeling of falling is enough for his second tail to shake the pins and needles feeling entirely, and he catches himself before he can dip too far on pure instinct. He can see more of whatever is reaching for him, now— long silver limb, glaring red eye, and then he sees nothing but blue as Sonic gets between them. And then they’re both gone, pulled back through the hole whatever that thing was created. 

Tails takes a moment to process this, and then— “SONIC!”

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Silver Sonic’s fingers dig harshly into his side, but Sonic can’t quite bring himself to regret stepping between it and the kid. Or, at least— he assumes this is Silver Sonic. It’s a lot bigger than Metal Sonic, at least, and the all-silver paint job is a bit of a dead giveaway.

It lifts him up to its face consideringly, like it was expecting to find a fox in its grip and is confused to find a hedgehog instead. Sonic takes the opportunity to kick it right in its pointy silver nose, and then curl up into a ball as it drops him.It helps him to absorb the impact, and once he has the opportunity he uncurls and takes a look at the room he’s been dragged into.

Silver Sonic is hovering partway up, clutching at its kicked nose. Can it actually feel the damage, or is it just doing that? He wouldn’t put it past Eggman to code pain into a machine. Aside from the giant flying replica of himself, the room is fairly plain, a simple metal cylinder, with several platforms decorating its edges. It looks like the ceiling is designed to open, but he has no doubt that if he tries to get up there, Silver Sonic will stop him, kicked nose or no.

He’s about to speed up to the first platform, intending to bounce his way across to spindash Silver into submission, when he hears a gasp from behind him— Tails. He’s poking his head through the wretched remains of the door, and he looks so relieved to see him, and Sonic... can’t.

There’s a thud, and Tails yells “Ah! Behind you!”, but Sonic is already moving, stumbling out of the way of Silver Sonic’s swipe. It hums at him angrily, it’s nose now bent at a 90 degree angle upwards. Sonic would laugh, but he can’t spare the time, not with Silver lunging at him again, and it’s slow— for his standards, but right now it’s fast enough that it’s taking all of his concentration to dodge.

Tails is working his way through the hole, and he provides Sonic with a temporary reprieve when he works himself all the way through and takes the opportunity to slam both of his tails into Silvers head. The robot looks back and forth between the two of them for a moment, before letting out a series of angry beeps and stomping its foot. It looks a lot like a toddler throwing a tantrum, and Sonic shares an incredulous look with Tails before kicking the robots knees. They crumple out from underneath it, and it lets out a robotic wail which almost has Sonic feeling sorry for it.

“Uh... sorry?” Ventures Tails, and it slams a fist on the ground, before curling into its own version of a spindash— significantly bigger and sharper. It rotates in place for a moment before launching, cutting into the walls like a crazed buzz saw, bouncing around the room. Tails is clearly having trouble tracking it, but it’s moving slowly enough that Sonic can keep out of the way when it comes bouncing by.

It starts to slow down, and Sonic takes the opportunity to land a spindash of his own, crashing into its side. The metal buckles under the impact, sending the robotic hedgehog clattering onto its side, still spinning faintly. Tails lifts himself out of the way as it falls, only to kick it as it skids underneath him. It clangs against one of the walls, and Silver unfolds looking rather dented. It’s clearly not out for the count yet— it stands up without difficulty, previously busted legs supporting its weight.

The nose, however, is still bent.

It takes a swipe up at Tails, who lifts himself further up out of its range. It swipes again, this time jumping a bit to get the extra range and apparently forgetting that it can fly— the rockets in its boots activate with a sputter, and it pinwheels past Tails to crash into the ceiling.

“Really, Eggy? Is this the best you’ve got?”

Accordingly, a nearby panel snaps open, and Eggmans reddened face fills the screen, “Its still a prototype! Once I perfect it, the real Silver Sonic will be able to dispose of you easily! ...freak!”

Sonic puts a hand on his hip, looking up at the prototype Silver, whose metallic quills have gotten stuck in the ceiling, leaving it dangling there. “Uh-huh.”

Tails hesitantly drifts up to it, dodging its few weak swipes at him. It mostly looks defeated, and once Tails is closer to its torso it stops swiping at all. There’s an echoing crunch, some snapping noises, and then Silver Sonic lets out a fading series of beeps as it’s limbs jitter, eyes fading to pure black.

Tails returns to ground level, and drops a handful of wires and electronic scrap onto the ground. “There we go! I removed most of its central processors, and some auxiliary wiring. It shouldn’t be able to repair that.”

“Nice work, buddy!” Sonic offers the fox a fist bump, before returning his attention to the ceiling. “Did you see anything to open the ceiling up there? I think that’s where Eggy wants us to progress.”

Tails returns the fist bump (and wow, he his unnecessarily hard), before shaking his head. “Sorry, but no, I didn’t. Besides, I don’t think it would open with...” he gestures to the remains of Silver Sonic, still wedged firmly in the ceiling.

Sonic shrugs, “Well, guess we’ll just have to make our own way through!”

A panel snaps open nearby, and Eggman starts yelling at them to follow the route he so carefully planned, but they both ignore it, instead prodding at the deep gashes in the walls left by Silver Sonics rampage. Eventually Tails finds one wide enough to squeeze through, and they both leave Silver Sonic’s boss room behind.

It’s a decision both of them will eventually regret. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Knuckles still feels like he’s gone for two weeks without sleeping, but he can’t rest. He won’t let himself, not with the Master Emerald (and now, Tails) still in danger.

But really, there’s nothing he can do. He’s still exhausted, the rest of the chaos emeralds still need guarding, and the Death Egg is still miles out of his reach in the sky.

It takes him a while to get his legs underneath him, and even longer to feel confident in standing without leaning on something. He’s a guardian, but he has to do something. He’s spent hours and days and weeks sitting in the same spot on the same island, but if he sits still for another second later he feels like he’ll explode.

But what can he do? He can’t reach them, he can’t help, he can barely even sense the Master Emerald at this distance—

But he can sense something else.

He reaches out, and six Chaos Emeralds reach back, and Knuckles gets a very smart, very stupid idea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started out writing the Silver boss fight as a Very Serious Fight that was going to take TeamWork and Coordination and Planning to take down and then Silver sprouted a personality and I couldn’t resist. Don’t worry, that other boss fight is still coming ;3  
> I can’t remember if I’ve said this before or not but I think there’s 1-2 more chapters.   
> I think I’m going to make this a series, though, so! I’ll be working on the rise of lyric fix-it first, but there will be other (probably smaller) installments gradually tacked onto this.


	10. ALL Aboard The Death Egg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> R E A L I Z A T I O N

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so it’s looking like the next chapter will be the last one, and then maybe an epilogue, depending where I end it.   
> Also, first chapter of the rise of Lyric fix-it is up (although really it’s just a prologue) under the totals Coda Concerto

A very smart, very stupid idea is a term Knuckles coined around year three of living with Tails. It refers to something that takes some time to think of, but is ultimately a colossally stupid thing to do. 

Unfortunately, this has rarely stopped Tails from carrying out said very smart, very stupid idea, with varying results. If Knuckles tries to point out past failures, Tails would respond with past successes, and so on it went.

The realization that what he’s about to do is a very smart, very stupid idea doesn’t deter Knuckles either. Not with the current circumstances, anyway, if it were any other scenario he’d punch himself in the face for considering it. But.

The Master Emerald is up there.

(And so is Tails.)

It’s a long, slow process to gather all the Emeralds off their alters and into his arms, not aided by how his knees feel like jelly. Still, every time he feels close to giving up, giving in, the Emeralds supply him with another burst of energy, and, well, if they think his very smart very stupid idea is more smart than it is stupid, who is he to argue?

Once he has all six, he arranges them carefully into his quills, maintaining his grasp on one— the red one. A wash of power thrums over him from the gem, and he feels a little more secure in what he’s trying to do.

Knuckles grew up with Chaos, it’s energy saturating his home and his life. He grew up with chaos as well— not the energy, or the gems, but the chaos of Tails’s latest machine gone wrong, or prank gone right. If it were anything else it would be second nature to harness it by now, but by nature Chaos (and chaos) is unharness-able, bound to defy any limits or ideals.

Still, Knuckles has enough practice in dealing with the undealable to be fairly certain nothing terrible will go wrong.

“Chaos—“

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

For all that they’re off the beaten path, the Death Egg still doesn’t get any easier to traverse. Tails, at least, seems to be having a better time of it with his ability to fly restored, but Sonic is... struggling.

Tails helps where he can, but he’s not used to carrying any weight other than his own and it shows. It’s not a feeling he’s used to, struggling with Eggmans machinations like this. No, he’s used to blitzing past every problem, his speed carrying him smoothly from start to finish (barring the occasional inconveniently placed spring), so taking it slow past loops and over pits of spikes is almost painful on its own merit.

(He remembers the look in Amy’s eyes, though. He remembers how swiftly and silently Uncle Chuck had left, as soon as he was able.)

(He remembers the look on Tails’s face when he sped through the barrier— and the fox hasn’t questioned him on that, hasn’t brought it up, and he doesn’t know if he’s grateful for that.)

Every so often they pass a panel that snaps open, but these ones lack the pre-recorded quality of the others. The first of them nearly gives Tails a heart attack, snapping out behind him as he turned to help Sonic up a ledge to a fuming Eggman— “You’re ruining my plans, you freaks! You’ll pay for this!”

Recovered from his surprise, Tails kicks the panel closed on a still ranting Eggman.It doesn’t open again.

The second panel gets no such fanfare, being placed much higher up. Eggman has clearly collected himself in the interim, but the distance between the panel and the ground means they can just continue on without bothering to listen to him.

There are a few other panels scattered about, but by majority they’re either ignored or kicked closed before Eggman can get more that a few syllables out. 

By the end of it all he’s a cherry red again, huffing and puffing as he yells down at them from a monitor too high to kick— although Tails does look considering.

They’ve made it surprisingly far into the Death Egg, for all that progress has been a struggle. Off the designed course, there hasn’t been that many badniks, either, just traps.

Which is why the set of doors in front of them look particularly promising. Tails had spotted it while peeking ahead for spikes, the cold grey otherwise blending in with the scenery if not for the radiating pulses of green energy— Chaos Energy— suffusing it’s surface. Faintly, from above, Eggman is warning them off about touching it, but he’s tried (unsuccessfully) to warn them off from about everything else, and it hasn’t worked yet. 

There’s no obvious access for them— no doorknobs or key pads here, so instead Tails pries off a few sections of paneling until he finds some important looking wires, and starts fussing with those.

He’s vaguely aware of Sonic behind him, but it’s much easier to focus on his work than to try and engage him— even if Tails has a few questions. A lot of questions, actually, enough questions that he’s honestly considering starting a list.

For example, 1.How do you usually get past these zones? (Followed up, of course, by 1A (do you really have super speed) and 1B (how does speeding up and collisions at that speed not kill you?))

... Okay, maybe it’s not easier to focus on his work with dozens of questions bothering him.

“So,” he starts conversationally, “how do you usually get through these zones?”

There’s a notable pause from Sonic before he responds, “This is the first death egg, if that’s what you mean. Usually eggy makes his zones a little easier, he must be really trying to end it with this one.”

Tails frowns, “But the room with Silver Sonic— there would have been no way for you to progress past it, unless you—“

“I doubt I was even supposed to beat Silver,” Sonic says a little too quickly, and then he’s leaning over Tails’s shoulder. “You almost finished with that?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I just have to...” Tails let’s the conversation fade out as he finishes working on the wires, musing on what was said. What was Sonic trying to stop him from saying? What was Sonic... afraid of?

There’s a dull hum, and the doors slide open, revealing an ominously dark hallway, lit by occasional pulses of green. It’s pattern is almost like that of a heartbeat, and Tails hesitates while staring into the dark.

Sonic, on the other hand, barely waits for the doors to finish sliding open before he’s set off down the hall, very confident for someone walking in the pitch black.

Tails catches up to him fairly easily, falling into stride just slightly behind the hedgehog. Just in case.

The hallway gradually opens up into a similarly darkened room. Here, the Chaos energy is audible, a gentle hum accompanying each pulse of green. It’s disorientingly like a heartbeat, like they’ve found the heart of the Death Egg.

Aside from the hum, the room is silent— not even the distant clanks and buzzes making up the Death Eggs general ambience making it through the green lined walls.

Sonic draws to a stop close to the entrance of the room, running a hand over his quills as he glances around. Tails waits behind him for a moment, before overcoming his earlier apprehension and ducking around the hedgehog to get a better view of the room.

Visible through the temporary lighting, there’s a dark mass in the centre of the room. If he squints, he can make out wires, some hard edges, what might be a switch or two. If he had to label it he’d call it an engine, but without proper vision it’s nigh impossible to tell.

He takes another step into the room as the light fades, intending to feel around the shape some with the hope of further figuring out its purpose. There’s a light breeze that tugs at his fur— maybe there’s a vent in here somewhere? Or is the energy itself physical?

Tails has never had the Master Emerald reach out to him, not really. Once, maybe, when he was younger, but he’s never had to sort of connection to it that Knuckles does. Still, this, the feeling and atmosphere in this room, it’s too familiar to overlook. The Master Emerald.

There’s another pulse of green, and something directly in front of Tails lights up. Sleek metal sides, pointed fingers— he follows the figures torso up to its face, where his gaze is met by two piercing red eyes, burning through the dark of the room.

And then impact— his head snaps to the left as his legs go out from under him, sending him toppling sideways. His jaw snaps shut and for a moment all he can see is stars as something warm and wet seeps into the fur around his temple, as the floor rises up to meet him. He collapses into a pile of fur and pain, only vaguely aware of the sound of impact somewhere above him through the ringing in his ears.

It takes him a minute or an hour to organize his scattered starbursts of thought, prying his eyes open to the gentle green glow of the Master Emerald. There’s— and then there— blitting around the room faster than he can follow, he can barely make out Sonic... and Sonic?

Trying to follow them reawakens the dull ache in his temple, headache kicking into gear and forcing his eyes shut again. It’s not the worst concussion he’s ever dealt with, but it’s still painful, especially with the scapes left by the other Sonics claws.

Two Sonics. The other one— the one that attacked him— looked like it was made out of metal, which— sure, okay, there’s more than one metallic copy of Sonic on this flying death machine, why not?

The cuts are still smarting, dripping blood down the side of his face, but he can deal with that. The headache— or, the concussion, rather, is a little harder to deal with, but it’s manageable. Not the worst he’s had, Tails reminds himself (no, the worst was— the worst is sealed under a vow of silence with Knuckles, and definitely not important right now), and it hurts, but.

But he has to pull himself together. Knuckles is down on Angel Island counting on him and Sonic is still fighting, and maybe, maybe if Tails can disconnect the Master Emerald, then the Death Egg will lose power and this will all be over with.

With that thought in mind, he starts trying to stand up. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Tails is unconscious. From what glimpses of him Sonic has managed to get while fending off Metal, he’s unconscious, but okay. Bleeding, but still breathing, and he might not be able to look him in the eyes after this, but he’s alive.

Really, it’s his fault. His fault Tails is here. His fault Metal is here. His fault Metal was even able to hit Tails in the first place, because he was a coward and he hesitated when it mattered the most.

But Tails is still breathing, and that has to be enough for now. Sonic has to keep it that way.

Usually fights with Metal take place in wide open areas— either outside or on mad racetracks of Eggmans design, not in a cramped, barely illuminated room. Trying to keep Metal out of a specific part of that room is even harder, especially since the robot is taking advantage of Sonic’s every hesitation. They’re matched blow for blow, but Sonic already has a few bruises from Silver Sonic and his continuously diverted attention is helping no one.

Well, it’s helping Metal, really, and if Sonic wants to make sure that Tails keeps on breathing he’s really going to have to kick it into gear. One last glance at Tails, the steady rise and fall of his breathing, and Sonic forces himself to pay full attention to Metal.

The fight gets easier, though only marginally. When you’re challenging the speed of sound in a physical brawl, it’s hard to call anything easier, but the lack of diverted attention allows Sonic to land blows he was previously missing, and dodge Metals typically unerring strikes. Forgetting Tails for a moment, fighting like this is exhilarating, a match literally built for him. It’s a challenge he won’t find anywhere else, a mirror built of steel, and—

Tails isn’t there anymore. Tails isn’t— he’s not in the corner anymore, and Sonic hasn’t moved him, and Metal definitely hasn’t moved him, which means—

Tails is leaning on the engine-thing, briefly illuminated by another pulse of green. He looks— hurt, traces of blood left in his fur from where Metal hit him, and he’s—

He’s looking right at him. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Tails balances himself on the Master Emerald, glad that he managed to cross the room without being caught in the crossfire of the hedgehogs fight. He takes a moment to breath, to try and follow the fight again, to ignore the pounding ache radiating from his temple, and his eyes meet Sonic’s, who very suddenly isn’t fighting at all.

He thinks, for a second, maybe that means that Metal is taken care of, except Sonic looks— he looks scared.

And then Metal is there, and Sonic isn’t fighting back anymore.

Tails is smart. Incredibly smart. Smart enough to know he’s smart, when the only company he’s had for years is Knuckles. Smart enough to put together the pieces he’s been handed.

And, just like that, it clicks. Of course it— he’s an idiot, as smart as he is, for overlooking the obvious, for not seeing what was right in front of him. He still remembers before he met Knuckles, when people laughed at him and called him a freak for daring to be born different. He still remembers how badly he wished he could hide what made him different. 

Sure, he doesn’t know everything, doesn’t know the full backstory between Sonic and Eggman, or what happened to make Sonic so determined to hide what made him unique, doesn’t know if what his brain is coming up with now will even work, but he has to try.

Sonic isn’t fighting back anymore, and Metal is brutal— Tails’s experienced one strike from the robot firsthand, and he has no desire to repeat the experience. He drops to a knee, feeling the mechanical shell around the Emerald. There has to be something he can pull loose, something he can use. After a moment, he finds it, a loose nut, loose enough to unscrew with his fingers.

This is a risk, but it’s a calculated one. An idea Knuckles would call Very Smart, Very Stupid. Sonic saved him once already, an impossible leap into a volcano, and Tails is banking on that happening again as the nut drops into the palm of his hand, and he straightens up to find the pair.

Metal has Sonic pinned against a wall, forearm across his neck, opposite hand’s metallic fingers glinting ominously in the light. Before he can think better of it, Tails hurls the nut at the back of Metals stupid blue head, “Hey!” He starts, and then tries to follow it with an insult but pulls a blank, “You— uh, big dumb robot! Look! I’m gonna steal the Master Emerald!”

Metals head rotates like an owls, red eyes piercing the black between washes of green. It hesitates for a moment, a conflict of code, and then it’s gone— Tails gets the barest indication to duck before it’s next swipe takes his head off. The movement makes his head swim, and his duck turns into an uncontrolled fall as darkness claims his vision for a second. It clears up as Metal straightens for a second swipe, and Tails presses his back into the machinery— this was a mistake, this was a terrible idea and if Tails ever sees Knuckles again he’s going to apologize and admit to eating all the grapes that one time, Sonic probably isn’t even awake anymore because it took him so long to unscrew the dumb nut and—

Then Metal isn’t there anymore.

To Tails, Sonic almost drops into existence where Metal used to be standing, glaring vindictively at the robots still body. The side of Metals head looks crushed in, heavily dented by Sonic’s final spindash, and Sonic takes a moment to make sure Metal is staying down before letting out a sigh.

Tails grabs a hold of his hand before he can get much further than that— he has been aiming for his arm, or maybe shoulder, but you can only reach so high when you’re half collapsed on the floor, so hand it is, and immediately starts rambling.

“I knew it! I had a feeling, that was so cool! How do you— what does it feel like going that fast? You must have some sort of built in resistance to wind force, or else you wouldn’t be able to keep those speeds up— how do you keep track of things when you’re going that fast?” and on, a flood of questions that hopefully let Sonic know that it’s okay, that Tails isn’t going to call him a freak, that Eggman is _wrong_.

Sonic blinks down at him for a moment, still breathing heavily, before letting out a little chuckle. A little chuckle that turns into a laugh. That turns into, okay, slightly hysterical laughter, and Tails lets his flood of questions trickle off but doesn’t let go of his hand.

“I can’t believe I— of course you’d—“ Sonic gets out between breathless gulps of laughter, “of course you wouldn’t call me a freak, haha! I’ve been real— I’ve been real dumb about this, haven’t I?”

“No, you’ve been scared,” says Tails, which is enough to dampen Sonic’s outburst.

He catches his breath again, not from a fight, this time, more from crushing relief, and pulls Tails back to his feet. “I... yeah. That too.”

They take a moment to appreciate the newfound understanding between them, before Tails turns his attention back to the casing around the Master Emerald.

“Now that, uh,” Tails gestures over to where Metals body lies, “he’s taken care of, I should probably get the Master Emerald out of here.” 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Sonic nods, not that Tails is looking, and settles down to wait. Now, with the adrenaline starting to edge out, aches and pains from tussling with Metal are starting to make themselves known, and he kind of just wants to sit down for a moment to deal with everything that’s happened, emotionally and physically.

Because Tails knows, Tails knows and he looks at Sonic the exact same way as he did before he knew.

Tails knows, and it’s okay.

Even without a fight, he’d need to sit down just to process that alone. Light in their dark room is starting to spread a bit, likely Tails removing chunks of metal from around the Master Emerald. Except the light isn’t coming from where Tails is working, it’s coming from in front of him, slightly to the left—

“—Control!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Metal was instructed to guard the master Emerald, so he decided to do that before finishing strangling the Lesser Sonic TM. Heh, tricks on him.  
> If you’re wondering who’s yelling at the end of the chapter, you might wanna check the start again ;3  
> sometimes I’m like “I didn’t write That Much” and then I go to pick it up again and I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the note I’ve been writing on and it’s like “okay more writing than I anticipated” every time. Look at me go, I’m a champ


	11. Super Sonic Speed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, remind me, what’s the title of this fic again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it, huh? This is, I think, the longest chapter to date. I probably could have broken it up a bit, but I didn’t want to lose any momentum.   
> Good luck, Sonic.

The emeralds are six stars gone supernova around him, and he shores up his own strength with theirs. The sensation isn’t unlike touching a live wire, leaving him feeling stiff and uncoordinated but standing on his own merit, no longer pushing exhaustion.

He pulls twin threads of chaos energy together, the master and the servants almost doing most of the work for him.

Still; using Chaos Control turns out to be a deeply unpleasant experience, and Knuckles almost topples over as soon as he realizes there’s solid ground under his feet.

Stretching away in front of him is a dark tunnel, though he can make out a faint green light fading at the end. It almost looks like Chaos Energy, he thinks, and then the Master Emeralds presence slams into him at the same time as Tails does. 

He staggers, but remains upright, twisting around to find Sonic, a weird mechanical heart, and Tails, who backs off from his surprise hug after a moment. Knuckles reaches out to ruffle the top of his head, and Tails swats his hand away, ducking back to the machine.

The machine, that he realizes, has the Master Emerald in it.

It takes about every inch of control that he has left over, but he doesn’t punch the damn thing then and theres. He’s tempted— if Tails wasn’t already studiously working at it, he probably would have reduced it to slag by now— but Tails is already working on it.

So, instead, he sits down next to Sonic, who hasn’t reacted much to his presence other than the initial moment of surprise. He’s looking down at his hands like the world has gone out from under him— Knuckles gets the feeling, it was just earlier that day that Angel Island fell. Still, he doesn’t know the guy well enough to offer comfort like he might with Tails, and so instead he just sits and waits while Tails works away. If there’s anything he’s used to by now, it’s patience.

The thrum of the room is disrupted occasionally by Tails’s tinkering, or by the emeralds reacting to the Masters presence. The bigger Emerald doesn’t respond, just hums quietly away under the machinery that it’s trapped in. He considers, for a moment, asking what happened to the fake Sonic, but he finds his answer in a misshapen heap off to the side. It looks almost like it tried to take one of his punches to the face, and failed spectacularly. 

Good. He’s half tempted to go punch it again. He keeps an eye on it anyway, just in case— if it moves a single metallic finger, he plans to reduce it to scrap.

Eventually, Sonic looks up from his hands, and seems to fully take in Knuckles’s presence for the first time. It takes him a moment, but he manages a grin and a “So, you finally believe me that I’m not after the emeralds?”

Knuckles blinks, caught off guard, before returning with “By now, yeah. You’ve had plenty opportunity to try and knock me or Tails out to take the Master, but you don’t seem to be planning to.” And if you do plan to, I’ll knock your lights out, goes unsaid.

Sonic chuckles, standing up and stretching. “Yeah, I guess so. Just don’t toss me back in that pit, and we’re good.”

Without preamble, or looking up from what he’s doing, Tails adds “I was right, Sonic has super speed.”

Sonic freezes in place, but Knuckles just shrugs. “Figured,” is all he has to say, and Sonic looks like the floor is gone out from underneath him again. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Two people. Two people know and accept him fully, and Sonic—

Sonic wonders.

He’s been basing the world off of a metric built by a madman, assuming that because Eggman hated him, everyone else did too. And yeah, there’s Uncle Chuck— Uncle Chuck, who he will never forget and still hasn’t found (who still left him)— but there’s also Vector and Espio and Mighty, and he wonders how they might have reacted. Or Amy, who looked at him with horror but had shown him nothing but friendship.

And there’s Tails and Knuckles, both of whom grew up so isolated from the idea of normal that judgement was barely even a factor.

He’s been an idiot. Eggman has been trying to kill him since before they met, and Sonic had trusted that when Eggman called him a freak, it was true. 

After the residual shock and worry wear off, all he can feel is anger. Anger towards his situation. Anger that he had never trusted anyone before. Anger at Eggman.

“You get the Master Emerald out,” he says, and both Knuckles and Tails look at him with surprise. “I’ll go deal with Egghead.”

If they protest, he doesn’t hear it, already gone from the black and green room that shelters what’s left of Metal Sonic. It feels freeing, exhilarating, and that makes him angry too.

He doesn’t know how long it takes him to saw through the rest of the Death Egg. With both Metal and Silver Sonic out for the count, all Eggman has left in the way of defence are his badniks and traps, neither of which stand up to his speed or determination. He wonders if Eggman still has panels around the ship yelling at him; decides he’s going too fast to care.

( _If he stops, the anger might turn into something else, something he isn’t ready to face yet—_ )

The final level of the Death Egg is about as dramatic as he expected it to be. A wide, empty space, illuminated both by twin beams of light coming from the outside and the harsh fluorescence that Eggman prefers. There’s a wide carpet stretching up to Eggmans control centre— stretching up to Eggman himself, who is leaned back and almost casual looking amidst a sea of monitors, each of which are slowly turning off. Sonic recognizes the hallways, the rooms that he blitzed through— the last monitor to shut off is the hallway that he just left. 

“Sonic,” Eggman starts patiently, and then Sonic is gone, the metal under him crumpling from the force that he kicked off with.

He gets close enough to almost touch the mad doctor, and then something harshly edged and coldly metallic slams into his gut, tosses him across the room. He takes the impact, rolls with it, catches himself on a distant wall and then he is moving again, all but invisible to the naked eye.

Eggman is moving too, in a way that suggests that he’s taking his time instead of being harried by an opponent; every advance Sonic makes, no matter how fast, is batted away like a cat with a toy. 

The reason is this: Eggman has absolute confidence in his newest creation. Devised before the Death Egg, finished before Silver Sonic was even started, made with the idea of what a Chaos Emerald could do, let alone what two could.

Tails made a miscalculation. Simple, really, almost understandable given the fox’s understanding of the world. The miscalculation is this: the Master Emerald is not and was not an engine for the Death Egg. It was a battery for this, a power source for what might prove to be Eggman’s greatest creation.

The Egg Dragoon finishes pulling itself free from its docking bay in the Death Eggs floor, almost filling a quarter of the chamber with its presence alone. Eggman disappears underneath the glass down that rises to swallow him whole. What might pass as the robots head— more of its entire upper body— tilts to the left, for a moment— one of its arms raises, like a viper ready to strike— and between one heartbeat and the next it does. The impact rattles the Death Egg to its core, shakes its metallic infrastructure, and just—  just misses crushing Sonic into paste.

Eggmans laughter rings out through the chamber, and the Egg Dragoon withdraws in order to strike again; it’s metallic carapace is loaded with weaponry, but there’s little need of it when it can keep up with the Speedster. Even managing to clip the hedgehog would be devastating, a surefire win.

It’s a new, untested idea, and yet it works perfectly— the machine is designed to follow Sonic’s chaos signature, a perfect lock. No matter how fast the hedgehog goes, the Egg Dragoon will always know exactly where he is.

And yet, and yet,  _ and yet _ , every single blow misses. A wide sweep is barely ducked under, a second downwards strike is bounced off of, a grab is evaded. Somehow, Sonic is outpacing the robot, and he’s only getting faster— not five minutes into the fight, he manages to land the first blow against Eggman, crunching into the Egg Dragoon’s glass dome. The material holds, barely, but it’s enough of a close call to test Eggmans ire. 

“You freaks never know when to give up, do you? My Egg Dragoon will outlast you, Sonic, you can’t run forever!”

If Sonic replies, it’s lost to the din of battle— unusual, for the hedgehog to not respond to a taunt. Vexed, Eggman tries again; “What? Too afraid to taunt back, hedgehog? Fox got your tongue?”

The blue blue pauses, for a moment, solidifies into mobian form, and it’s curiosity alone that stays Eggmans hand, that stops him from directing the Egg Dragoon to end it there and then.

A moment later, he’s queueing up the Egg Dragoons weapon systems, abandoning the melee approach entirely— Sonic is forced from his spot by an array of missiles, and then kept busy as Eggman takes a moment to reflect; he’s never seen Sonic look quite so angry before. Furious, is the word— and it’s not a good look on the hedgehog.

Yes, Eggman thinks, letting go of the controls for a moment in order to rub his hands together in glee, Sonic looks  _ terrible _ .

He pays for this moment of reprieve, of course, the hedgehog slams into the dome protecting him for the second time, damaging the material further, but that hardly matters at such a momentous moment.

It’s a careful act— a spray of bullets to encourage him to the left, followed by seemingly random missiles to herd him forwards, into the awaiting grasp of the Egg Dragoon. It’s metallic fingers snap shut almost too late— Sonic almost notices the trap before it is sprung, but the word almost is key.

This, of course, is a risk: it could serve to enrage the hedgehog further, Eggman thinks, as he lifts his struggling opponent to eye level. But, oh,  _ but _ , it will be so perfect to see the look on his face.

“You know,” he starts, almost conversationally, “Your Uncle had the same look on his face when I killed him.” 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

The Death Egg rattles, and Knuckles exchanges a look with Tails. Whatever that impact was, it wasn’t good— the last thing Knuckles wants is for the Death Egg to come crashing down on Angel Island. Tails reads this on him, looks back to the Master Emerald, and nods.

“You go check on Sonic, I’ll get the Master Emerald out of here.”

If it were anyone else, he would never even consider it— but it’s Tails, and so he just nods, and turns to leave, planning to take the quickest route to wherever the hedgehog’s ended up now.

It helps that, just as he takes a step away, the Master Emerald nudges him with ambition.  _ Go _ , it whispers, and he does.

Steel doors slide shut behind him, and he shivers at the sensation— it feels like he’s travelled miles away from the Master instead of the handful of steps that he has. A unique and unpleasant sensation, to be sure— the Chaos Emeralds still tucked into his quills shudder against eachother like they can feel the distance.

However, with the Master muted, he’s free to pick up on other strains of Chaos energy— there are the Emeralds, of course, stars at his back— but above him, layers and layers above, there’s a false sun of energy, drained and thin in the way none of the Emeralds are, but still all encompassing.

He takes a moment to look out over the intended route, rich with traps and wastes of time— to get where he needs to be could take hours, and his faith in Chaos Control isn’t great enough that he trusts it not to take him back to the Emerald again. Instead, he picks the nearest wall and starts climbing, punching his way through the ceiling whenever it impedes him. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

The words reach him, register in his brain, and Sonic... stops. The tidal wave that’s been threatening to crush him has finally come crashing down, and he can’t feel it at all.

Eggman. He has to— he’s supposed to fight Eggman— when did it happen why wasn’t he there why didn’t Uncle Chuck say _anything_ what happened to Muttski— he’s supposed to fight Eggman, _right now_ , not— he just thought that Uncle Chuck— he was wrong— he was  **_ wrong _ ** —

The Egg Dragoon lurches violently, and Sonic only realizes that he’s falling a moment before he hits the floor— enough time to adjust and roll into the impact, but not enough to— _Uncle Chuck_ —

A hand wraps around his arm and drags him to the left, the ground shaking behind him as explosions fill the air with chaos. The hand pulling him stops, lets go, and a moment later impact snaps his head to the left.

It’s enough to shake him out of his fugue state, and he looks up to meet Knuckles eyes. The echidna looks— annoyed? worried?

“— back with me?”

Sonic doesn’t answer, doesn’t waste the time that it would take to explain to Knuckles— well, anything— between one beat and the next he is slamming into the Egg Dragoon with all the speed and force he can muster in the cramped chamber. 

What makes it worse, perhaps, is the fact that Eggman is laughing.

He looses track of Knuckles in the melee— looses track of where they are, looses track of himself— all he knows in the moment is grief and electric anger and Eggman—

He’s sloppy.

This time, Eggman doesn’t bother waiting to taunt, doesn’t waste a rare opportunity on digging his fingers deep into old wounds— this time, the Egg Dragoon strikes, and it connects.

Nothing. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Knuckles knew that Sonic was fast— Tails had said so, and Tails was right— but as it turns out there’s a fundamental difference between knowing speed and feeling it. Sonic is a whirlwind against Eggmans latest robot, and it’s all Knuckles can do to follow the shape of their fight.

As much as Sonic is attacking Eggman, the chaos energy in the room is attacking itself. He can find and track Sonic’s signature, laid over itself in triplicate and counting as the hedgehog moves, swallowed by the false sun of Eggman’s Master Emerald powered machine.

And, just under that, the barest glimmer of potential swallowed by the storm. Another Emerald— the  seventh — given over to this madman’s machinations. Now that he’s looking, now that he knows what to see, it’s influence is everywhere. If Tails knew his folly, he might wonder how the Death Egg managed to stay suspended, might realize it flew long before it had the Master; and here, Knuckles has the answer.

The gem in question sits comfortably in the torso of Eggmans machine— below the bulky cannon-laden torso, above the spindly legs. He barely notices the distance between them disappearing, much the way Eggman doesn’t spare a thought for him, caught in the wilds of a fight he was prepared for.

The panelling doesn’t hold up next to his strength, enhanced ever so slightly by the excited rattling of the emeralds in his quills. The seventh, a rich purple, gleams at him, and Knuckles takes it in hand exactly as the fight comes to a slamming halt.

For a moment he wonders if taking the Emerald stole away the power of Eggmans machine, a moment later remembering the leftover power from the Master, enough to fuel it for a lifetime.

If it’s not Eggman, then, that’s stopped— then that means that—

He doesn’t get to finish the thought, as the Egg Dragoon pulls back, settles into a neutral resting position.

Sonic is there.

It doesn’t look good.

Knuckles felt an earlier blow of similar magnitude shake the Death Egg to its core, and this time, instead of connecting with the battle-torn ground, it—

Eggman doesn’t know he’s there. In the room, yes, but not that he’s close enough to touch. Not that he’s close enough to—

Seven Emeralds. The seven emeralds are the servers. Chaos is power, enriched by the heart. The controller serves to unite the chaos. The Master Emerald spoke to Sonic— the ancient murals painted on his homes walls, depicting a hedgehog of brilliant golden power.

This is his second Very Good, Very Bad Idea of the day.

Let’s hope it counts. 

* * *

.•.•.•.

* * *

Nothing.

And then, everything. He feels— he feels it _all_ , every single little thing, and all of it is overridden by a wild, catastrophic joy. He feels it riding through his chest, into his lungs and threading through his heart, forcing him to move almost before he’s awake with the sheer energy of it.

He’s awake, and he’s alive, and he’s smiling— and then, finally, he is aware.

The first thing he sees is Knuckles, again, indecipherable. If he had to put a name to his face, it would be awe, but that hardly fits the echidna. The second is Eggman, for all he can barely pick out the doctors face underneath a layer of heavily cracked glass.

The third is the Egg Dragoon, arm coming down agonizingly slowly on top of the two of them— by the time he sees it, it’s almost there. The idea of moving Knuckles out of the way simply doesn’t register. Instead, that wildly giddy feeling rises up inside of him again, and he holds up a single hand— like he could stop a mountain from falling by planting a tree.

Except he does. The metal crunches under his palm, the machine shudders with the impact, and Sonic doesn’t feel it at all.

Finally, he notices himself. Radiant with golden light, hovering off the ground with it, rich with energy, and he feels that this is _right._

(He feels invincible, unstoppable, just like the day he left home for the first time, for his first run.)

The world rushes to meet him, and Knuckles flinches and curses as the Egg Dragoon’s fist slams to a halt above him. Eggman curses too, for an entirely different reason. One last ace in the hole, it seems, always one more last thing that lets the thrice damned hedgehog come out on top. 

Then, Sonic is there, and it isn’t like before. The Egg Dragoon doesn’t even detect the movement, let alone counter it, and Eggman is left to stare into green-eyes-gone-red, into the son of the man whose murder he flaunted. 

Sonic—  _ Super _ Sonic reaches towards him, and the bulletproof glass parts at his touch, crumbling away before Eggman can snap back into gear and kick the Egg Dragoon into moving. The machine responds eagerly, and then it doesn’t respond at all, between one breath and the next it is reduced to slag. 

(If Eggman wonders at being left alive, he doesn’t show it. He stands up, curses, instead, and stalks towards the ‘Just-In-Case Emergency Exit’. _Next time._ He knows what the emeralds can do now. Next time.)

Knuckles doesn’t fare much better with keeping up— the emeralds power paired with Sonic have created— well. He hopes that it will wear off, that it can wear off, and then he’s on Angel Island, watching a streak of gold pierce the Death Egg like a needle through fabric. He doesn’t worry— doesn’t have _time_ to worry— about Tails, before both the Master Emerald and fox are gently placed next to them. Tails is still gripping a screwdriver, squinting against the sudden daylight. The Master hums a delighted tone, and Angel Island starts to rise, and then Sonic is in front of them again. 

He’s still golden, still not touching the ground even as it chases him into the sky, and he’s wearing a grin Knuckles has only seen on Tails after a breakthrough. The Master Emerald hums again, and Sonic’s quills leech blue as Angel Island settles above the clouds. The Chaos Emeralds are gone, scattered to the winds, which, well. Knuckles knew there would probably be a price to pay for his Idea— at the moment, he’s just glad that they’re alive. That they’re  all alive.

”That was— what _was_ that?” Sonic asks, looking for all thats happened like he’s still on Cloud Nine.   
  
“A super form? Knuckles, I thought—“

”Yeah, well. Turns out Egghead had more than just the Master stored up there. Besides, it was necessary.” 

Tails nods, giving him a look that means he’ll be explaining more later.

There’ll be a lot more, later. Questions to ask and answer, grief and revelations to process. For now, though, they watch as the smouldering wreckage of the Death Egg sinks into the oceans, irregardless of the tiny shape that detaches from its mass and putters to shore. Tails puts his screwdriver away, Knuckles lifts the Master Emerald to return it to its shrine, and Sonic takes a seat on the edge of the island— for a moment, not dwelling on what lead up to this. 

For a moment, everything is okay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there it is! This is the first multi-chapter fic I’ve finished in years, and the second multi-chapter I’ve finished... well, period. Couldn’t have done it without you guys, and all your wonderful support. Thank you all so much. 
> 
> A few quick notes! Yes, there will eventually be an epilogue, and yes, I’ll probably write more one-shots in this ‘verse. For now, though, I’ll be taking a break from this in order to really hammer out the kinks on my rise of lyric fix it.   
> Another headcanon of mine is that Eggmans machines lock onto Sonic’s chaos signature— which is why they’re able to keep up with him in the games. Besides, he’s perfectly capable of building something that can match Sonic’s speed (coughcough Metal Sonic cough).  
> Additionally, I’ve always figured that going Super feels really good, and that + the crazy amounts on energy make it very hard to focus on the negative, esp when you don’t have practice at doing it. Sonic still very much has to come to terms with what happened to Uncle Chuck, but for now he’s riding the wildest high you could imagine.  
> Fourth: comments are always welcome, no matter how long it’s been since I’ve finished this. Love to hear what you guys have to say :)

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah I’m gonna be honest I didn’t finish outlining before I started writing because I got impatient But I probably know where this is going. It’s fine. This is fine.  
> (Ssssssorry Uncle Chuck, gettin the short end of the stickkkkkk,,,,,,)  
> Geeee Sonic wonder why you have a chaos emerald


End file.
